Through the Valley of Death
by Knoxxie
Summary: Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil, for you are with me . . . A story in which the Lone Wanderer Jennifer Williams must decide whether the ends truly justify the means. Or: a multi-chapter retelling of the main quest, DLC, and major side quests.
1. Chapter 1

James dragged his hand across his face and sighed; he couldn't remember the last time he had slept properly. First, Catherine had gone into a grueling labor that had lasted for hours. Then, after the birth of their child, her sudden cardiac arrest caused by the stress of labor had taken her from this world. Finally, his swift departure from the Purifier and the Citadel. Madison.

The fight with Madison was weighing heavily on his mind. James hated that the last interaction he would have with her for a very long time would be their screaming match. Madison just didn't seem to understand what he needed to do, and she had refused to accompany him and "abandon everything they had accomplished". Which was what, at this point, exactly?

James still wasn't sure he was making the best or the right decision, but the safety of the vault was the only thing he could think of now. By now, their project was a lost cause. Besides, he had sworn, when he had promised to marry Catherine, to do anything for his family. It seems he had failed his wife, but he would not fail his,_ their_, daughter. This seemed like the only choice he could make in this situation.

Star Paladin Cross suddenly entered the abandoned garage they were staying the night in and walked over to the chair he was occupying. "Has she gone back to sleep yet?" Cross bent down to examine them more closely in the dim light and smiled slightly at his daughter.

James sighed again. "No, but I think the formula will help put her to sleep soon. She was just hungry." He also smiled down fondly at the child in his arms. James had always held the opinion that newborns looked somewhat like prewar potatoes, but he didn't hold the same view of his daughter. Then again, he might be biased.

Cross gave a sharp nod of her head in acknowledgement and began to pace. "Good. We're making significant headway out of D.C., but I'm still worried about roving raider gangs or mutants that could be attracted to our location from the noise she makes." Cross stopped and looked back at him. "I just wanted to check in on you two. I'm going to head back out to keep watch. Goodnight, James." The Brotherhood of Steel member left the garage the same way she came in.

James owed her so much, along with the rest of the Brotherhood. The whole Wasteland did. The group had barely been here for over a year and a half, but they had already started making a name for themselves by assisting wasteland locals and securing the D.C. ruins and the surrounding area. The group, led by Owyn Lyons, was a stark contrast to the main branch James had learned about located in the West, but in a good way. He vaguely wondered what made this small branch so determined to help the locals.

They had provided him with the location of Vault 101, the security to reach his destination - although he suspected that the Star Paladin would have accompanied him regardless of her orders - and enough baby formula to last two weeks. The last part he was particularly grateful for. James had no idea what he would have done without the Brotherhood's help in this.

* * *

It was a good thing James didn't consider himself a prideful man, because he was practically _groveling_ in front of the Overseer of Vault 101. "Please, you don't understand, I will be a valuable asset to this vault! I have knowledge of hydroponics and medicine. I know for a fact that these are skills that are hard to come by, even with prewar-level education."

The Overseer's voice clearly conveyed his irritation through the speaker beside the vault door. "As I've stated before, doctor, nobody may enter the vault or leave it. You will not be the exception." There was only the static of the speaker for a moment, and then the Overseer's voice rang throughout the cavern with a tone of finality. "If you refuse, I will be forced to engage remote security and forcefully remove you from that cave!"

James felt desperation clawing at him; fear choked him in a vice. This was the only way for his family. The only way to be safe. He had to get in! "I lived in a Vault. I know there are no remote security systems, and I can activate the terminal here to open the door." Anger rushed through him like a wave. Did this man think him stupid? Who did he think he was fooling with his pretentious 'remote security' façade?

The Overseer's voice thundered from the speaker. "What do you mean _you lived in a vault_?" James could practically hear the other man grind his teeth from outside of the vault. "Lying about such things will garner you no points with me." The Overseer's snide voice made James's eye twitch in irritation. "I can see you quite clearly through the camera; you have no Pip-Boy. Only the owner can take it off without harm, so where would yours be?"

James breathed deeply to hold his composure; his skill set hadn't been enough to hook the man, but maybe his background knowledge of vaults could be. "Irrelevant. However, you should have no problem taking in two unmutated humans; more pure genetics can only help the gene pool of the vault by expanding it." James had many thoughts on the idea of 'pure' genetics, but it would be more helpful in this situation to keep those to himself, probably indefinitely. "By the time I left my vault, the population was around three hundred and fifty and only continuing to decline." James paused for a moment to let what he had said sink into the other man's thick skull. "You shouldn't be denying entry to humans that could only help the population of the vault."

The Overseer's silence was deafening; when he spoke, the words sounded as if they had come through gritted teeth. The Overseer probably had a vein throbbing in his forehead, at this point. "Fair enough. You keep saying 'we', as if there are more than just you." A statement meant to be a question, clearly. This man seemed to have control issues. In James's experience, all Overseers did.

"I am referring to myself, of course, and my infant daughter. Her mother died in childbirth, but we were both vault dwellers." That was an outright lie; Catherine had absolutely no experience with vaults, except for perhaps looting the failed ones. Working vaults with inhabitants descended from the original vault dwellers were exceptionally rare, especially after almost two hundred years postwar. Vault 101 is the only inhabited vault for a hundred miles, as far as James knew.

He cannot let this opportunity pass him by.

The Overseer's voice buzzed from the intercom. "I will consider the information you have presented me. Come back in precisely thirty hours; by then, I will have decided whether you are valuable enough to break the most important rule we have." The intercom popped with a sound of finality. "Come with your infant daughter and no one else. Any other people spotted through the security camera, and you will be denied entrance to the vault permanently."

James let out the breath he had been holding, slow and controlled. Easy enough, he supposed. James had been planning on sending Cross away regardless of the outcome of this meeting; he can't overstay his welcome regarding her help, even if they had become good friends over the two weeks they spent traveling together.

He turned and began to walk out of the cave entrance leading to the vault. Passing by the skeletons that had petitioned to be let into the vault, he couldn't help but elatedly think about how he had accomplished what they hadn't. James was almost positive he would get in now; he had secured a safe environment to raise his daughter in and, when the time came, to leave her in permanently.

Despite what Madison seemed to think, James had no intention of abandoning Project Purity completely. When the opportunity presented itself, he would leave and resume his work on one of the most important endeavors to grace the wasteland. It was just that, currently, he had more important matters to attend to.


	2. Chapter 2

Jennifer jumped to awareness from the screeching of the alarms. Someone was speaking to her urgently. "Wake up! Get up, you have to get up!" Jennifer quickly rolled out of bed in confusion. The blaring alarms and flashing lights were quickly giving her a headache. Amata grabbed her forearm and pulled her towards the exit of the room. "You have to leave! Now!"

Jennifer pulled her arm back urgently. "Amata, what the hell is going on? What's happening with the alarms?" Jennifer instinctively stepped back a step or two to give herself space to think. Amata looked extremely upset. Were her eyes wet from crying? Panic jumped through her and made her joints tingle with adrenaline. "What's wrong?"

Amata quickly rubbed her eyes. "You didn't know? Your dad left the vault! Those are the alarms that warn us the vault door has been opened." Jennifer's mouth dropped open in shock. _Dad left? Nobody can leave the vault!_ "It gets worse." Amata took a deep breath, as if bracing herself. "The guards…they killed Jonas! I don't know why they did it, but I looked for you in the lab first before I came here, and I saw everything. You always stay up so late and I thought maybe…" Amata pushed her breath out harshly and rubbed her eyes again.

Jennifer shook her head. "God, Amata. Dad left?" Jennifer was suddenly very, very angry. "I had no idea he was planning something like this! What was he thinking? Nobody leaves! Ever!" The girl swiftly walked over to her dresser and began to pull on her vault suit and boots. "I need to talk to your dad and smooth this over. He'll understand that I had no idea about this." Jennifer finished tying her boots and shook her head angrily. "I can't believe any of this! They killed Jonas! He shouldn't be _killing_ people!" She crossed over to Amata and gently put a hand on the other girl's shoulder. "Are you going to be okay? What do we do?"

Amata had been pulling Jennifer's old school backpack out of her locker as the other girl had been speaking. "I don't think talking to my father is going to work. He's gone crazy! I heard him order the guards to shoot you on sight…" Amata collected the emergency medical kit kept in every vault apartment and stored it in the bag. "You need to get out. You won't be able to survive down here; not with my father acting the way he is." She shoved some bobby pins in the bag, too.

Jennifer slowly shook her head, eyes wide. "Shoot me on sight? Oh my God…" Jennifer took a bracing breath and let it out harshly. "I guess I _will _have to leave." Jennifer took the backpack and quickly began to pack. Extra vault suit, folded neatly. Just carry the baseball bat. BB gun and ammo; that will be useful outside the vault. Outside… She couldn't even imagine…

Amata began to pull Jennifer towards the exit and then gave her a pistol and promised to meet by the vault door. _Go through the secret tunnel._ The next hour was a blur. The flashing lights and screaming alarms made it seem like one of those prewar horror holotapes. Butch and his mother; Jennifer took those roaches out with her baseball bat and Butch gave her his Tunnel Snake jacket in thanks. _Ugh, it smells like his God awful cologne._ Luckily, most of the security guards had been occupied by the Radroaches. After all those years of practicing on them with her BB gun, the multitude of roaches didn't really affect her anymore.

But the guards… Amata was right. They were bloodthirsty! Two guards gunned down the Holdens right in front of her! Their screams rang in her ears as the sprinted past them. _Get out. Get out. Go go go!_ Fear made her muscles tighten to a snapping point.

Then Amata was being interrogated. Jennifer burst into the room. It was all a blur, she's not sure exactly what happened. The Overseer was screaming at her and Amata had bruises on her and Officer Mack hadn't been wearing a helmet. Jennifer hit him in the face with her bat, pushed back the Overseer, grabbed Amata, then ran for it. _Oh God I've killed him he was bleeding on the ground there was a puddle oh God…_

Amata was crying and they were running. "I didn't think he would do something like this!" Jonas's dead body lying sprawled on the ground, covered in blood, was something that would never leave her after this night. A note from her father. The Overseer's office. The terminal and the tunnel. Radroaches, again, but they were too easy at this point. The darkness and the oppressive atmosphere almost seemed to highlight the blood on the end of her bat. Officer Mack's blood.

Finally, the two of them were at the vault door. Jennifer quickly made her way over to the lever to open the vault door. The sirens blaring overhead seem to change from an urgent, screeching sound to a slower note with pauses in between. Less grating on the ears, thank God, and the vault door started to move.

Amata couldn't believe it. Jennifer couldn't either, frankly, and she had been the one to do it! The sounds of the guards outside the door made a shot of panic so strong shoot through her that Jennifer almost dropped her bat. "Amata, you have to come with me. Those guards will kill you if you stay!" Amata had to see reason. Officer Mack had beaten her, who knows what they'll do next!

Amata was already shaking her head. "I have to talk some sense into my father. I need to stay with mine, and you need to go find yours." Amata sucked in a breath suddenly. "I can't believe this. You're leaving…"

Jennifer took in a few deep breaths to steel her nerves. The vault door was screaming open behind her, and the guards were almost in. She only had a few seconds to act. Jennifer pulled Amata towards her gently and kissed her. The vault door clanged to a stop. Jennifer let Amata go. "Be safe. Please. I'll try to find a way to get back in and make things right." Amata was staring at her, shocked, rooted in place. The other girl turned and ran out of the vault just as the guards made it through the door.

Jennifer stopped halfway down the cave and watched, helpless, as one vault security officer handcuffed Amata and the other began to shut the vault door. The two girls held eye contact until the vault door was back in place. Sealed, permanently.

Jennifer slowly turned and resumed making her way to the door at the end of the cave. _May as well be the green mile._ Ironic, considering what she was expecting the world to look like when she gets there.

The door, a blinding light._ The sun…_ Jennifer couldn't tell if her eyes were watering due to the intensity of the sun, or something else. Probably a bit of both. The ground was gritty and dusty when she fell to her knees, and she heard her bat hit the ground and roll away.

Jennifer was finally outside.


	3. Chapter 3

Megaton was not exactly what Jennifer was expecting to find. Lucas Simms and his kid were pretty nice, along with those Stahls. Jericho was somebody she didn't want to be left alone with; all the hairs on the back of her neck stood up when she met him. _Creepy._ Moira Brown kind of reminded her of Jonas: eccentric and very enthusiastic. Jennifer liked her immediately, and she planned on helping her with that Wasteland Survival Guide project. She really needed the experience that would give her with survival and navigating the wasteland before she tried to find her dad. And also the money. _Fucking Moriarty._ Jennifer kept getting irritated every time she thought about the encounter with Moriarty. Who was he trying to fool with his dumbass fake Irish accent anyway?

* * *

Jennifer nervously approached the building with the large sign over it, Moriarty's Saloon. First a sheriff and now a saloon? She didn't realize the surface was going to be a western. Wasn't that a thought? Jennifer steeled her nerves and quickly opened the door to the building.

Inside were probably around fifteen people. Loud music from a jukebox assaulted her ears along with the general ruckus of a dozen people sharing the same room. Dim lights made it hard to see; she couldn't tell if it was from the fading light outside or if the bar was trying to be atmospheric. A few individuals stood out: a blond haired woman with a general air of anxiety. A man in a tan suit that tried to wave her over when their eyes made contact. _If they even did. Asshole is wearing sunglasses in this dim building, the hell?_ A red haired woman with smoky eyes that was wearing a very low cut shirt…vest…thing. Um. Anyway.

Was that a zombie behind the counter? _Oh, what the hell. Really?_ He didn't seem to be trying to eat people. He actually looked pretty sad. _Who wouldn't be if they were missing all their skin? _He was just serving drinks; probably the bartender, but not the owner. Worth a shot, anyway.

Jennifer crossed over to the counter and leaned on it slightly with her forearms._ All right, don't you dare be a dick to him._ She smiled politely at him. "Excuse me, sir? Are you the owner of this bar?"

The man looked up in surprise. His cataracts were milky. Can he even see? "Are you talking to me?" His voice was very raspy, as if all of his vocal cords had been shredded. "No, I'm definitely not the owner! Just a worker." He didn't seem to be making eye contact with her. _Wonder why he's so nervous? _"The owner is a man with a grey beard named Moriarty." He went back to wiping down the cup in his hands. "Can I get you anything to drink?"

This guy actually seemed really nice, if nervous. She felt kind of bad about her rude thoughts earlier, calling him a zombie and what-not. "Sorry for the mistake, then. And no, thank you. My name is Jennifer Williams. It's a pleasure to make your acquaintance." She held out her hand for him to shake. However, she slowly let it drop back down after a few awkward moments of him staring at it and not returning the gesture. Did people not shake hands anymore as a greeting?

The bartender hastily dropped his rag and put his hand out. "I'm so sorry! I didn't mean to be rude! You just caught me off guard, really." They shook hands and Jennifer very firmly made sure that her smile didn't drop off her face. His hands were freezing cold and a horrible texture; the skin on her arms prickled under her vault suit uncomfortably. "My name is Gob, and I'm the bartender here."

Jennifer was about to reply with more niceties when a man with a grey beard stepped out from the door behind the bar. "Oh, excuse me, Gob." She walked around the corner of the bar to catch the man by the stairs. "Hello, are you Mister Moriarty?" Honestly, she didn't see how it couldn't be, but it wouldn't do to be presumptuous at this point.

The man raised his eyebrow and sized her up. "Aye. And who would you be?" Moriarty didn't seem very impressed with her.

"My name is Jennifer. I'm looking for my father. Middle-aged, should be wearing a vault suit like me, too."

Moriarty's eyes widened in shock. "Oh my God, it's you… The little baby girl all grown up. Come far now, haven't ya? It's been a long time, kid." He seemed to get over himself quickly, regained his confidence, and nodded once. "Your dad's been through alright. Here and gone. Got what he came for and left."

Jennifer couldn't respond for a moment; she tried to process what he seemed to be telling her. "Wait, what the fuck? How would you know me as a baby? My dad and I were born in the vault…" _Born in the vault, die in the vault. Last bit wouldn't be true for her._

The bar owner let out a barking laugh. "Is that what he told ya? You two were born there? News flash, kid, he lied. Probably to protect you, either way." He grinned and showed off a set of yellow, chipped teeth. "He brought you there after you were born to keep you safe. He stayed in my saloon, ya see."

For one horrible, choking moment, she couldn't breathe. _What. What._ Her thoughts must have been plain on her face, for what they were.

"Yep! Him, the Brotherhood friend, and you. Sorry about your mom, truly." He clapped his hands together cheerfully. "But! Life goes on and it's full of disappointment. And now, it seems, you're looking for him and you've come to me." Moriarty got a business-man like glint in his eyes that put her teeth on edge. She had an idea where this conversation would be going.

"Let's cut to it." Jennifer's jaw clenched. "How much do you want to tell me where he went?"

Moriarty grinned again and showed off his horrible teeth. She hoped everyone out here didn't have such a nasty mouth. "What you want is information, and information is a commodity. Let's say...one hundred caps. Seems reasonable." The way he phrased his statement made it sound like a question, but she knew it wasn't and that there would be no bargaining with the man.

That was all she had after selling her BB gun and bullets. Thank God for Moira Brown and the fact that she took one look at her and probably took pity on her.

Jennifer took the money out of her backpack and handed it over. Moriarty started greedily counting the money. "Your dad went to go talk to that loony in Galaxy News Radio, Three Dog."

Jennifer turned and started to walk away from him. "Thanks for the info, Moriarty."

"So long, kid! Good luck finding dear old dad."

* * *

This town honestly has a couple of problems. In Moriarty's bar was some suit guy trying to get her to blow up the whole damn town. Honestly, what does she look like to him? Evil? And then the prick tried to pull a gun on Simms when she turned him in. Simms totally owes her now because she stopped the asshat and shot him. She should probably feel worse about shooting him, but frankly she doesn't, and she doesn't know if she should be alarmed by that fact. It wasn't a cold-blooded murder; the guy tried to shoot Simms in the back! So Jennifer shot _him _in the back. And then grabbed his gun and ammo, because a silenced pistol will come in handy eventually.

After that she helped the old mechanic by fixing up the leaking pipes around Megaton. It seems like she's getting a lot done around here, and she's less likely to get thrown out of town if the people around here like her. Jennifer probably has a trust issue or two since she's so paranoid around all these strangers, but it's probably warranted by the fact that she was locked underground for nineteen years. She almost froze up trying to talk to that Silver woman down in the Springvale ruins before she even walked into Megaton.

The most obvious thing about the town was the bomb, but that was easy enough to disarm. They even have a cult here centered around worshiping radiation; she hopes they don't sneak into her house and try to murder her for disarming the bomb.

Jennifer's not going to question why the vault had books explaining the inner workings of bombs; she's just grateful that she was bored enough to read them at some point so she knew what she was doing.

In all honesty, though, what crazies build a settlement around a damn atomic bomb? Some old woman she talked to made some excuse about the "safety of the crater". Whatever. It really wasn't her problem, but her altruistic ass can't say no to dumb people begging for help. Simms was really pleased to hear that she disarmed that bomb in the town center; he even gave her a house for it. Jennifer is just glad she disarmed the bomb and got a house for it before she talked to Moriarty and learned she had to pay for the damn information. Otherwise, she probably would've asked for money and Simms doesn't seem _that_ generous. Jennifer prefers the free house, frankly.

She seems to be one of the few residents to have one, actually. Most of the people seem to live in these big community houses and probably pay rent. The house was nice; included was a terminal, some lockers, a kitchen, a bedroom, and a small bathroom. _Thank God for running water!_ It even included a Mister Handy named Wadsworth, so she didn't have to worry about leaving her stuff and getting her house robbed. Also, he dispenses fresh water, which is good. It's damn hot outside the vault.

Jennifer hadn't expected this many people to be living around here. There seemed to be hundreds! Probably lowballing it, around five hundred with one hundred kids. There was even a little school house near the back of the town! They only seemed to teach kids until around thirteen, though. She only saw older kids working. Which makes sense, considering what the life span of an average surfacer must be.

Megaton was full of strange and creepy characters, but it seemed like it would be home base for a while. Honestly, the town wasn't too bad. At least they weren't cannibals.


	4. Chapter 4

Jennifer tapped her boots against the ground to try and knock off the dust then entered Moira's shop: the Craterside Supply. Moira had offered her a job, kind of. To act as an assistant for her book._ Human guinea pig, how wonderful. _She quickly looked around the shop and couldn't immediately locate the other woman. "Moira, I'm here! Where are you?"

She heard a shuffling sound and Moira's voice filtered out from the back of the shop. "Over here! In the back room!" Jennifer made her way to the voice and stopped short at the sight of Moira's hands completely covered in grease.

Jennifer's face twisted up in mild disgust. "Why are your hands so dirty?"

"I'm working on one of my side projects, of course! I'm calling it the Rock-It-Launcher! But that's neither here nor there. You're here to help me with my book, right?" Moira gave her a friendly look and began wiping off the grease on a rag that had been hanging out of the pocket of her Red Rocket jumpsuit. It didn't actually help clean off her hands any.

Jennifer gave the rag a wary look, but she nodded her head in assent. "Right. Something about radiation." Moira got a gleam in her eye that made Jennifer regret offering her help, pay or no pay.

"The effects of radiation on the human body." Moira began to move into the main area of the shop. Jennifer quickly followed after her. "The Capital Wasteland is a perilous place, and one of the most dangerous aspects is the radiation." Moira began to root around behind the front counter. "It's in the air, the water, the animals, and plants! No escape from the heat, so one of the most important topics of the book will be the ways to combat it." Moira stood up from behind the counter with a clipboard and a faded, yellow pencil. "Specifically, with Rad-X."

Jennifer gave the gear a mildly indignant look; her suspicions were rising with every word out of Moira's mouth. "Okay. Where exactly are you going with this?" Moira handed her a pair of jeans, a shirt, and a very old looking pair of shoes. "Why are you giving me these? What are you planning, you untrustworthy scientist?"

Moira grinned at Jennier and gave her a small push towards the workshop they had just left. "Put those on and I'll tell you on the way."

* * *

"All you have to do is stand there! It's really no big deal."

"You're not the one standing in the puddle of irradiated sludge!" Jennifer's Pip-Boy ticked frantically with the rising radiation. _Oh my God, this is what Darwin warned us about._ "I can hear my genes dying. I'm going to die from radiation poisoning, or turn into a ghoul, or develop seventy different cancers, and you're going to feel really bad."

Moira_ hmm'd_ to let Jennifer know that she was listening to her, but not really. "You're fine. I'm going to detox you before any of those things happen." She stopped scribbling on her papers for a moment. "Probably."

Jennifer looked at the Geiger counter on her Pip-Boy. "We're coming up to six hundred rads, and I'm definitely starting to feel it through the Rad-X. Please free me."

Moira nodded her assent and gave her a wide berth as they started on the way back into Megaton. "So how are you feeling?"

"Like I'm about to melt through the ground." Jennifer frowned at Moira's exasperated look. "Nauseous. Tired. Really hot. My head is foggy and pounding, and I'm going to pass out." The two had only stepped right outside Megaton to put Jennifer in a pool of water, but the hill leading up to the city's entrance made Jennifer want to keel over and never get back up. "Why did you make me change into these clothes?" Jennifer began to pant as they continued the climb.

Moira gave her a worried look. "You're really pale, too. I'd hate to see you without the Rad-X combating the effects. Good thing I didn't need you to test the effects of radiation without the buffer!" She stored her pencil under the clip at the top of the clipboard. "I'm going to dispose of those. I didn't want to irradiate any of your clothes, and vault suits are resistant to radiation, anyway. I didn't want them to skew the test results."

Jennifer tried to muster an affected look, but it was difficult when she felt so terrible. "Awesome. I didn't know the suit could do that. Yay."

Moira opened the city doors for her. "Alright, let's get you that remedy now."

* * *

After the testing, Moira had administered a 'home-made remedy' and took Jennifer back to her new Megaton home. Twelve hours of uninterrupted rest later and she felt as good as new. The only unpleasant side effect seemed to be the lovely new mutation she had acquired. _Fucking superb._

Jennifer approached the decrepit supermarket with trepidation. Moira had sent her after food and medicine, so she could record her experience with scavenging. Moira hadn't informed her about the bandits. _What are they called? Raiders, maybe?_ Regardless, they were not very friendly.

There had been two of them out front, but they had only had some rusty knives and she still had Amata's pistol. It had been easy, and she still didn't know how that made her feel. But the bodies hanging on hooks, smelling of blood and rot, helped her decide that she really didn't care. It was a bit of whiplash; the death of Officer Mack had scared her so badly, when she was escaping the vault, but these people just made it so hard to care about them.

Jennifer opened the door as quietly as possible, but she cringed when the doors gave a little squeak. Stepping inside, it was difficult to see in the dark, but she didn't dare turn on her Pip-Boy light. She pressed against the wall as voices drifted down to her.

"What d'ya thinks happened to the boss? They should'a been back by now!" The voice was rough and feminine. _One inside._

"Probably found some loot or somethin' on the way." The second voice, masculine, sounded annoyed. Probably not the first time the woman had asked that question. _Two, now._ "They're always late. It's seriously not a big deal."

The entire place was dim, but there was a faint light near the back of the store. Jennifer leaned around the wall. There were shadowy figures moving around the planks, on what used to be the store's shelves. She couldn't see anybody else moving, so she crept up to the shelves and kept low to the ground.

The tinkling of glass as she stepped over a broken bottle made her freeze, and then very quickly move into the cluster of shelves. Sharp voices echoing out - _what was that?_ \- and she trembled as she checked her ammo clip. The first raider peeking out over the walkways surprised her, and Jennifer shot wide. The second shot found its target - more chance than skill - in a spray of blood. When the other raider sprinted to his companion, shouting, she wasn't caught off guard.

Two shots to the chest had him falling onto the ground; his weapon clattering uselessly. Another one to the head cut off his scream. Frantic voices were coming her way, so she moved back and around to try and get behind them.

She ran to what used to be the pharmacy. Whoever had ran out left the door open behind them and she shut the door behind her. Jennifer moved over to the counter and crouched behind it. She slowly leaned against the counter and aimed her gun at them. The first shot lodged into the man's kneecap in a shower of blood and bone. The second, his eye. His companion only made it about halfway to the counter before she was dead, too.

The supermarket was silent. Jennifer slowly released the breath she didn't know she had been holding and began reloading her gun. She had almost used a full clip of ammo on only four people. _Need to be more efficient. Or quieter, maybe._

Jennifer moved towards the fridge, but the sound of voices pulled her up short. Cursing, she flattened back against the wall and moved to the counter in a crouch. Cocking her pistol, she stood silently and aimed her weapon. _Time to be more efficient._

* * *

Moira was infinitely pleased with the supplies Jennifer had gathered and the description of her encounter. Jennifer was happy with the money she had jingling in her pocket after selling everything of note from the Super Duper Mart. The girl left immediately to go finish the first chapter of the book.

A place called Minetown was just north and a bit east from Megaton. All she had to do was investigate the rumors of a 'ghost' and deactivate one of the mines. Easy, Moira had said to her, smiling. In and out. Thirty minutes, tops.

_All lies._ Jennifer's teeth rattled with an explosion.

There was some psycho with a sniper rifle. The trap was clever, she had to give him that. Jennifer hadn't even noticed she had been walking into a death field, and then the water had started to boil. _No time to jump out of the pot, now, just gonna have to push the whole thing over._ She fired at the man and sprinted for the side of a house.

A mine exploded on her left. She gritted her teeth against the white-hot pain of shrapnel lodging in her thigh. Jennifer just had to make the final sprint to the man's nest. He wouldn't be able to use his rifle after that, just whatever close ranged weapons he had. The new wound would make it difficult, but doable. Jennifer crept to the edge of her cover. She let out a breath and leaped from the edge of the building. Sprinting, heaving, she ran for the entrance to the sniper's hideout. One shot went flying past her shoulder and another followed. The final bullet struck the ground by her feet and then she was sliding into cover.

The man cursed and stomped down the steps. Hoping to gain the upper hand, she raised herself up and gripped her pistol. She waited, aiming for the entrance. A _click!_ had her leaping back from the grenade thrown from inside the doorway. The explosion knocked her senseless. She struggled to aim as the man came barreling through the door.

Jennifer fired her gun. Once, twice. She caught him in the shoulder, but he knocked the gun from her hand and grabbed her. The man pulled a knife from his belt and swung it down towards her. She deflected it off her Pip-Boy and the knife cut a line on her upper arm. Gritting her teeth, she pulled the man down and rolled him over. She brought her right fist down on his face. Again, and again._ Crack! Crack! Crack!_

Eventually, he stopped moving.

Jennifer got up, panting, and picked up Amata's gun. She slowly entered the building and climbed the stairs. At the top was the man's sniper rifle. Carved into the side was the word 'Arkansas'. She slung the strap over her shoulder. There was no ghost in Minetown. Just a dead man.

* * *

The deactivated mines bumped around in her bag. Jennifer's hand stung, and her thigh and upper arm hurt where she had stitched them. The bandages over both itched. _Thank God for vault doctor training._ She grumpily wished she was back in Megaton so she could use some Med-X. Then her wounds wouldn't hurt so much. Objectively, the day wasn't _that_ bad, because she wasn't dead. But one did not have to be objective all the time.

A few shots fired nearby. The day could get worse.

Jennifer hurried into the nearby junkyard. There were shouts from the middle of the maze of decrepit cars. She unholstered her gun and ran to the sounds of screaming. The scene was a bloodbath. A few dirty looking people - raiders, probably - were practically ripped apart. On the side, a man with a coat covered in patches was full of bleeding holes.

A grey and black dog was nosing the dead man full of holes. She holstered her gun just as the dog turned to look at her. He growled, and she raised her hands passively. "Whoa, boy. I'm not going to hurt you." The dog growled again, low, and she stepped back.

Trying to keep her body language open - she's never seen a dog before, but she read about that somewhere - she slowly slipped off her backpack. Rummaging, she brought out some jerked brahmin that Moira had given her after returning from the Super Duper Mart.

Jennifer slowly threw the peace offering to the dog, and he eyed her suspiciously before sniffing the food. He reached out and started eating it, before looking to her for more.

"Oh, so you like me now that I have food for you, huh? I see how this is." She kneeled down and he slowly padded over, gently taking the proffered meat. "See? I'm not going to hurt you."

The dog licked her outstretched fingers, and she rubbed his ears. "We good now?" He made a grumbling sound that she decided to take as agreement. "What's your name, huh, boy?" He looked at her with mismatched eyes - one brown, the other blue - and went back to the dead man.

Jennifer followed and reached into the pocket that the dog was nosing. Inside was a little paper with the word 'Dogmeat' scrawled on it, and a little silver whistle. "Are you Dogmeat?" The dog wagged his tail at her enthusiastically.

Objectively, the day could get better. She pocketed the two items and rubbed Dogmeat's ears again. "Come on, boy. Let's go."


	5. Chapter 5

Jennifer hated all the open space. In the vault, the only means of attack were from the front or rear. There weren't different levels - high ground or low ground. People couldn't stand on top of a building and shoot at someone because there _weren't _different levels in the vault like there are on the surface. Except maybe the atrium.

She lamented this fact as the raiders cackled on top of a burned husk of a house and lobbed grenades at her. _Why more explosions?_ The day had been getting better, too. Dogmeat was so cute, and he would run around her and flick his ears. They had _almost _made it back to Megaton without incident. Then he had stopped suddenly and let out a low growl. Different from the one in the Scrapyard, which had been defensive. This one had been a warning.

Jennifer leaned out from behind the building she was using as cover and shot at one of the raiders. The bullet slammed into her armpit and the woman screamed and dropped to the ground. Her friends let out angry cries and started shooting more furiously and haphazardly. Jennifer ran to a house closer to their position with Dogmeat hot on her heels. She fired and hit another one in the leg. He fell to the ground with a short scream and a _crunch!_

The last raider came barreling down the derelict stairs. They groaned in protest to the weight. Jennifer raised her gun to fire, but the dog decided to beat her to it and launched himself into the man. Two seconds later, the raider's throat was ripped out. Dogmeat gave one last bark at the body and scampered off it. She covered her mouth, briefly, to resist the urge to gag at the site.

"Ugh. Good boy, I guess. You're covered in blood." The dog barked happily at her. "Come on, Dogmeat. Let's deal with the rest of these filthy raiders."

* * *

Their base wasn't that hard to find, really. The old school building was practically crawling with the gang. Actually, Jennifer is glad that she hadn't had to deal with them before this point. It probably wouldn't have ended well for her.

Dogmeat is also a lot smarter than she originally gave him credit for. She resigned herself to the thought that the dog would most likely barrel off at the first sign of the gang and alert them all, but it actually didn't happen that way. He kept to her heel and stayed quiet, waiting for her signal.

Jennifer crept around the side of the building to the open back. She picked off the few raiders that were 'patrolling', in the loosest sense of the word, and made her way inside.

The building was dark, and she could hear the sounds of people chatting not too far away. She switched out her 10mm pistol for the silenced gun she got from Burke - well, his dead body, anyway. Following the hallway, she paused outside a room that must have ten or so men and women in it around a table. The room held fridges and the counters were covered in bottles and plastic containers: a dining room, maybe? The door was open and light spilled into the hall.

Making sure that her shadow couldn't be seen from the light of the doorway, she pulled one of the two grenades off her belt. Carefully pulling out the pin, she reached around the door and threw the explosive into the room and slammed the door shut.

Only a second of confused shouts followed by an explosion that shook the room. Screams filtered through the closed door. Jennifer covered her nose and mouth against the stench of blood that filled the room like a cloud as she entered. Near the door, one man was lying on the ground with both of his legs blown off, screaming. She quickly put a bullet in his head. Every other person that had been in the room were shredded - torn apart by the explosion in the small space.

Footsteps pounded down the hallway; people were coming to check out the loud noises. She slammed open the door on the other side of the room and came face-to-face with a group of three raiders. Catching them off guard gave her time to quickly aim and fire. Jennifer cursed when it only caught the leader in the upper arm. At her word, Dogmeat entered the fray.

She finished off the first raider by shooting him in the stomach. Dogmeat broke another's kneecap and brought her down. The last one aimed a gun at her dog, so she ran forward and slammed him into the wall. Jennifer shot him, and by the time she turned around, Dogmeat had killed the other.

* * *

Most of the raiders left were in groups of two or three, and Jennifer and Dogmeat proved they could take care of that many easily. She was shocked to learn that the group had been trying to dig into Vault 101. She's glad that she killed them before they had the chance.

Clearing out the rest of the school building was easy. Trying to figure out where those child-sized skeletons came from was hard.

* * *

The next day, Jennifer opened the door to the Craterside Supply. "Yeah, Moira, the mine job only took thirty minutes. It wasn't a big deal at all."

Jennifer must've looked like hell, because Moira raised a dubious eyebrow at her. "Uh-huh. Is that why you looked like you lost a fight with a Deathclaw? What happened?" She eyed the bag in Jennifer's arms. "And where did you get all that?"

Dogmeat barked from Jennifer's side. The girl laid the mines she had scavenged on the counter and unzipped the bag. "I killed the raider gang holed up in the Springvale School. Also, there was a crazy sniper dude at Minetown - that's your ghost. He would blow up the traps anytime anyone entered the town." She leaned down to ruffle the dog's ears. "This is Dogmeat. I found him in the scrapyard on the way back from Minetown and he likes to eat people's kneecaps." Dogmeat wagged his tail.

Moira's eyes almost bugged out of her head. "You did _what _at the Springvale School?" She leaned over to look into the bag. "Those raiders have been there for months! Messing with the trade supply, killing people. What do you mean you just 'went in there and killed them'?"

Jennifer rubbed her arm where the Minetown Ghost had sliced her. "Just that. I was almost at Megaton yesterday evening when they ambushed me. I went into the school and killed the rest of them." She started taking guns and supplies out of the bag. "I got really lucky and a bunch of them were in one room together eating. I just tossed a grenade in there and killed the rest of them in manageable bunches. Will you buy any of this?"

Moira stared at her for a second in silence. "Yeah, I'll buy these. And thanks for killing those raiders. You've helped out Megaton a lot since you showed up a few days ago." She gave Dogmeat a friendly look. "I'm glad you found a friend."

Jennifer gave Dogmeat another pat. "Yeah, I'm glad, too."

* * *

Jennifer didn't really like Moriarty, or his stupid saloon, or his dumb fake accent, but she found herself walking into the bar anyway. She did like Gob, and she wanted someone to talk to. Moira didn't agree to join her - _'I'm compiling the data into the first draft of Chapter One!'_ \- but she did agree to watch her dog, which was nice. So Jennifer entered the smoky, dim establishment alone.

It was more crowded than the last time she was here. Probably because it was evening. The space smelled unpleasantly of body odor. Jennifer slid through the crowd to the bar and had to raise her voice to be heard over the rumble of music and chatter. "Hey, Gob! What's up?"

The bartender looked up nervously, then smiled when he saw who it was. The flesh of his face twisted strangely, but not in an entirely unpleasant manner. "Haven't seen you in a few days, vault girl. I'm...well, hanging in there." He looked at her bruises. "Looks like you were in a fight or three." His voice was as rough as she remembered: similar to dragging a moldy carpet across gravel.

Jennifer shrugged and laughed. "Yeah, well, I'm helping Moira with some book." She wasn't exactly a people-person, but it seemed as if Gob was a little bit less anxious around her. That's a pleasant turn around from recent events. "It's weird and dangerous, but it pays, so I'm not complaining."

Gob nodded in understanding. "How's the search for your dad coming along? Oh, and can I get you a drink?"

Jennifer paused. "Hm, just water, thanks. How did you know I was looking for my dad? Did Moriarty tell you?"

Gob reached into the fridge and pulled out what looked like a tall can of water and set it on the counter. "That's ten caps." Jennifer counted them out and he put them in the rusty, old cash register. _Ca-chink! _"Kind of. I overheard you talking to Moriarty, and Three Dog's covered a couple stories on you two. Do you listen to the radio?"

Jennifer popped of the top of the water and took a sip. Refreshing. "No, I haven't. Three Dog is some host? What's he been saying?"

"That your dad left the vault, and then you. That you disarmed the bomb in Megaton. Nice things." He tried to look reassuring. She was not reassured.

"Huh. Okay. Well, maybe I should-" Jennifer was cut off by the appearance of a young, blonde woman. The other girl arrived at the counter quickly and looked anxious.

"Gob, have you gotten any news from Arefu? Anything at all?" The girl chewed on the fingernail of her index finger.

"Sorry, Lucy, I haven't heard anything yet. You'll be the first to know." Gob went back to nervously looking down and wiping broken glasses. "I need to keep working. Bye, Jennifer. Remember to listen to the radio." With that, Gob went to fill an order at the other end of the bar.

The other girl - Lucy, apparently - blinked, looking upset. Jennifer sighed internally then took another sip of water. "Is something wrong? Do you need help with anything?"

Lucy looked up at her. "Well, I don't know…" Jennifer raised an eyebrow at the other woman, which prompted her into continuing. "It's just that… there may be nothing wrong at all. My parents live in Arefu with my brother, and I write letters to them to keep updated." She anxiously bit her lip. "Recently, I haven't gotten a response from anyone. In weeks. The white noise is starting to freak me out. Silence in the wasteland is never good news."

Jennifer bit the inside of her cheek and lamented her apparent need to help people. "I could check on them for you?" Too unsure sounding, try again. "I can. How far away is it?"

Lucy's eyes lit up. "I couldn't ask that of you, but if you really want to, I can give you directions! Oh, all you have to do is check on them and give my family this letter!" The girl smiled wide. Maybe it's just Moriarty around here with a gross, yellow mouth. "I would really appreciate you doing this for me!"

Jennifer smiled back at her reluctantly. "I don't mind, really. It's not that far out of my way. And you can just mark it on my Pip-Boy map, that would be easier."

Lucy leaned over to enter the coordinates on Jennifer's map, then reached into her bag to retrieve the letter. The letter consisted of crusty, yellow paper. _Great, now I'm a courier. Sounds like an easy way to get shot and left for dead!_ Lucy crushed the other girl in a hug. "Oh, get back to me soon! I'm sure there's nothing wrong."

Jennifer extracted herself from the hug. "Right, I'll be back in a few days." She patted Lucy on the arm. "Don't worry. Everything will be just fine."


	6. Chapter 6

The sun was slowly setting in a stunning array of red and orange watercolors. The gritty, dusty air made Jennifer's throat ache, but the sights that came with the surface made that discomfort worth it. The duality of outside life continued to surprise her. Wonderful sights, like the happiness of children playing in Megaton, or the beautiful sunset, contrasted sharply with horrible realities like the Minetown Ghost and the Springvale raiders. Just another aspect to adjust to.

She hadn't made it to Arefu yet, but her Pip-Boy map displayed what looked like an old neighborhood not too far from her. Hopefully, she could just hide in a house for the night. However, the smell of burning rubber and tar black smoke rising in the distance indicated that the place wasn't as abandoned as she had hoped. Crouching down and pulling her sniper rifle off her back, a quick look through the scope revealed an interesting situation.

Several young people seemed to be shuffling around in a barely guarded 'town'. Flimsy walls of sheet metal covered the areas that would've been open space between houses, and a rickety bridge crossed a small moat in front of the main entrance. The lack of hanging, mutilated bodies reassured her that the town was not a raider camp.

"What do you think, boy?" Dogmeat let out a grumble. How helpful. "All right, let's play nice." Jennifer holstered her sniper rifle. She put up her hands and made her way over to the entrance. In her scope, there had only been one guard, so she wasn't too worried.

The drowsily reclining guard suddenly stood up and sent the metal chair flying. "Hey, who are you? Stop at the end of the bridge!" He fumbled with the gun on his right hip before deciding to give up the futile effort. "What do you think you're doing here?"

Jennifer stopped at the end of the bridge. She hadn't been expecting a warm welcome, exactly, but this seemed a bit much. "I'm looking for supplies and a place to spend the night." The sun had set and a dark haze settled over the landscape. "Why else would I be here?"

The guard apparently decided that he would try again for his gun since she was following his directions. "I d-don't know. You could try and drag us off to the slavers or something!" He looked despondent. "Honestly, you're better off scavenging something else out there. Not much is left in Big Town."

"I'm not going to be selling anyone to slavers, thanks. I didn't even know there were any." But she's not surprised. "And I'd really rather not be out here alone. In the dark. At night."

The guard let out a wheezing sigh. "Well, all right, I guess." He tried to put his gun up. He wasn't very successful. Seeming to give up on the endeavor, he righted his chair and sat back down. "The big building at the end, on the right, is the Common House. That's where everyone else will be right now. Feel free to go where ever, just...try not to kill anyone."

Jennifer crossed over the _extremely _rickety bridge and tried to smile at the guy. "I won't be killing anyone." She passed him, then paused for a moment. "Probably." The guard gave a sharp intake of breath behind her and she turned around. "Kidding!" The guard seemed more likely to throw her back over the bridge. She continued quickly walking towards the Common House.

* * *

The other inhabitants of Big Town were not any more friendly or helpful than the guard, Dusty, had been. They all seemed dead-set on their 'holy hellfire: doom and destruction' sort of mindset. The worst part was, she let her guard down for _one second_ and she got roped into helping them find their kidnapped doctor. Jennifer seemed to keep helping a lot of people she did not originally intend on helping, which sort of sucked, because her dad was off gallivanting across the wasteland probably getting abducted by slavers or something - because those were a thing - and she was stuck helping some defenseless wastelanders.

Helping defenseless wastelanders including, but not limited to, some guy that had unconscious in the doctor's house. That only took a minute, though. He had been in a drug induced coma, but Jennifer woke him easily since his internal wounds had healed.

There was no time to appreciate the sunrise this morning, however, because she was quickly approaching the Germantown Police Station. Stomping around outside were a bunch of giant, green monsters. _These must be those 'supermutants' the Big Towners were talking about._ The shortest one looked about eight feet tall with bulging biceps the size of both her thighs._ That's impressive and super fucking scary!_ She was suddenly glad she decided to spend almost all her money on a shotgun from the trader outside Megaton before she left, because Amata's pistol was not going to do any damage to that tower of muscle.

She cocked her shotgun. Fortune favors the bold.

* * *

The inside of the police station was dark and cramped. The walls were molded, giving the inside the thick, cloying scent of decay. The supermutants seemed fond of eating people if the bags of human intestines were any hint. She wondered where on earth these mutants could've come from.

Luckily, the mutants didn't employ any sort of tactics and just charged at her. The shotgun was very effective in this situation. She only wished that she hadn't had to learn how to hold it through trial and error, because her shoulder hurt from the first shot. Dogmeat hated the loud, explosive sound of it firing in the enclosed space.

Bloody handprints flaked off the wall and the sting of rust flooded her senses. She had made her way from the second floor onto the ground floor, and she walked into a room with a jail cell. Inside the cell was a young woman that definitely fit the given description. A very pretty girl with a red jumpsuit, glasses, and bandana sat on the ground, trying to saw her rope bindings with a piece of shrapnel.

Jennifer made her footsteps louder and the girl looked up. "Need a hand or two?" She tried to smile reassuringly and desperately wished she was better at talking to people. "You're Red, right? I mean, I don't know who else you could be. You're wearing all red."

The girl looked like she was trying not to laugh at her. "Yeah, I'm Red. As you've noticed. Did someone from Big Town send you?"

Jennifer started over to the jail cell door. "Yeah. Everyone, actually." The lock looked electronic and the wiring connected it to a terminal on the other side of the room. The mutants were smarter than she gave them credit for. "They seemed pretty desperate to get you back." She started typing and initiated a hacking program - in about five minutes the program would construct the password.

"Yeah, I bet, seeing as I'm the only doctor! Also, do you plan to get this door open?" Red hadn't stopped sawing through her restraints and her hands finally snapped free of the rope. She started on her feet.

"I'm running a program on the system to give me the password to the door. It takes about five minutes." Red looked between the computer and Jennifer, impressed. Then, a worried expression settled over Red's features.

"We have another problem."

* * *

Someone else had been kidnapped with Red. Some guy, Shorty or something, who was currently in the kitchen and probably in the process of being gutted.

_You have to wait for the password, anyway, so just go check on him!_ and _You fought your way here so a few more muties won't hurt anything!_ and _Big Town needs every one of us!_ Sure, Red.

So here Jennifer and Dogmeat were, currently crawling through filthy green monsters to save some guy who was probably already dead. Her shotgun clicked empty and she started reloading her last few shells. However, the room she entered, after busting off the lock, held a treat.

Stored in a container next to an empty gun locker was a set of combat armor. The matte grey surface was scuffed, but otherwise in fantastic condition. She quickly strapped on the pieces for the torso and back, the upper arms, and the legs. Jennifer felt much better about this now that she had armor and a rad-resistant vault suit.

* * *

Jennifer didn't feel great for long. The setup looked simple: one man, tied up and bleeding everywhere, and one ten foot tall supermutant. She had sent a bottle sailing past the mutant to catch its attention, and the bottle shattered against the far wall. She had sent a grenade after that.

The grenade did more damage to the wall than the supermutant.

The mutant had let out an ear-splitting roar, and her DNA screamed at her to run, get out,_ flee for your life! _Instead, Jennifer cocked her shotgun and a slug sailed after the grenade. And she had accused the Megaton settlers of being dumbasses.

The skin of her arms prickled under the vault suit. The crackle of ozone filled the air, and a red laser raced out of the boxy gun cradled in the supermutant's huge hands. It slammed into the wall next to her and the plaster cracked and burned. Startled, she sidestepped and sent the next slug into the mutant's face.

That did something. The mutant let out another bellowing scream and pawed desperately at its face. Rivulets of blood streamed from its eyes, and it started firing the laser rifle haphazardly. One bolt came perilously close to her dog, and she ordered Dogmeat back into the hall.

She fired again and again into the mutant's face. Finally, the it fell to the ground with a great _crash!_ \- it's face a pulp of blood and meat.

Jennifer picked up the rifle from the ground. It seemed to be in poor repair. The weapon was covered in dents and rust, and the glass piece on the end was cracked. But, the thing was powerful, even in this state. If she could just repair it, maybe...

She stored the weapon in her bag and crossed to the young man on the ground covered in blood. Actually, he mostly had some head wounds bleeding sluggishly and bruises over his arms. They may not be too bad - head wounds like to complain a lot and bleed easily - but that was a problem for the future. She just had to figure out how to get him out of this kitchen.

In the end, Jennifer had to carry him out. It took a damn long time for the group to walk back to Big Town, and she grumpily hoped that her new armor made the walk uncomfortable for the unconscious man.

* * *

Jennifer sucked on the finger that the robot's circuits had shocked. She was trying to help the residents of Big Town protect themselves in a more permanent manner - the echoes of gunshots could be heard from the practice range - and she didn't have a lot of faith in their shooting abilities. Not that her own were much to shake a stick at, which is why she's currently rewiring the robots. Dusty, the best aim in town, was instructing the gunfire as best as he could.

Shorty was still in the clinic, sleeping off his ordeal and the copious amounts of Med-X Red had shot into him. Exiting the clinic, Jennifer had spotted the robots lying in the junk heap and had felt particularly inspired. Especially by the sentry bot. Luckily for Big Town, they only required a bit of rewiring and repowering and not actual repair.

She wasn't certain that there would be any more supermutant attacks after clearing out the Germantown Police Department, but the slavers were still at large and very much a threat to the people here. She trimmed the frayed end off the green wire, re-ported it, and closed the electrical panel. Sentry bot, Securitron, and Mister Gutsy: finished. Only thing left was to program the patrol routes.

A shout sounded near the entrance and alarm raced through her. _An attack? Already? _She ordered the Mister Gutsy to the town entrance and went to find someone. Gravel crunched under her boots, and she slid to a stop near the middle of town. "Kimba! Status update!"

The tall woman pointed to the ridge beyond the town, where a faint whisper of movement could be seen. Maybe ten, in all? "Slaver party, coming up fast. We're getting into defense positions." The woman left with her massive hunting rifle and hustled to the Common House. Kimba, with second best aim in town and first best eyesight, had been designated sniper, and the Common House roof her nest.

Jennifer cursed and ran to her own temporary defense position: the town entrance, with nearby cover to dive into. She hoped maybe, somehow, with God's grace, to convince the slavers to leave. When they came back, the town would be more than able to protect itself, but the changes were still far too new and tender.

She raised a hand and started to say something - she could never recall what, on reflection - when a fury of pain ripped through her. Three bullets slammed into her abdomen and she hit the ground.


	7. Chapter 7

Her forehead slammed into a sharp rock and wet, sticky blood slipped down her face and over her right eye. Two more bullets flew past her and collided with the ground in an explosion of pebbles. All around her, the residents of Big Town opened fire. She lifted her head and tried to drag herself into cover. Everything was spinning and foggy. Her ribs hurt and she felt blood flowing out of her and onto the ground. She wished she'd worn her armor, but there had been no time.

Dogmeat howled. She slipped into darkness.

* * *

_Drip. Drip. Drip._

Jennifer's head itched, and her body felt like someone had dropped a pre-war car on it. She couldn't remember what happened very well, though. Her memory was hazy, like someone had wrapped it in clear film and submerged it in water. _Drip. _Just the robots and running and someone shooting and yelling. _Drip._ Her hands and face had been wet. Why had they been wet? Had it been raining? No, her hand is wet now. _Drip._ But this felt different. Almost like… _Drip._

Dogmeat?

She cracked open her eyes - slowly, _slowly _\- and there he was. Dogmeat was panting and drooling everywhere and generally making a big mess. He must've licked her hand or someth- _Drip._ And that fucking dripping noise was from somewhere in the room. She wished it would stop, please, finally, so she could concentrate on something. Every time she heard that noise it disrupted her thoughts, like throwing a stone into a pool of water._ Drip._

She tried to turn her head to the noise, but it hurt too much to do that, so she just closed her eyes again and went to sleep.

* * *

The clean smell of disinfectant filled her nose. A murmur of voices slipped past the haze of sleep and filtered into her ears. Was that… Red, maybe? And somebody else - Kimba, it sounded like. She opened her eyes and tried to call out to them, but her throat was so dry that all she could manage was a weak croak. Footsteps in her direction, then Kimba's cheerful face looking down at her.

"She's awake, Red!" The doctor rushed over and peered at her bandages. Jennifer tried to sit up on her elbow to look, too, but her head swam and she leaned precariously. "Whoah, girl. Cool it with the movement." Kimba caught her arm and slowly helped her into a sitting position. Her abdominal muscles protested loudly and swiftly. Red handed her a lukewarm bottle of water, and Jennifer drank deeply.

"Ugh. What the hell happened? It feels like I got shot!" The look on their faces sent a spike of panic through her. "I got shot? Seriously? What! How!"

Red tilted Jennifer's face to look at the stitches on her forehead. "When the slavers came, you stepped up to try and negotiate with them. Presumably. They didn't let you get a word in before they started firing." She gave a little sigh. "Any of us could've told you they don't negotiate." Red let go of the other girl's face.

Jennifer touched her hand to one of the bandages on her stomach. "I thought it was worth a shot. I didn't want anyone in town to get hurt." She sat up a little straighter. "No one was, right?"

"Nope, just you. And all those slavers." Kimba gave her a little smile and offered her a hand up. "You've been out for three days. Red says you're mostly healed. Through the magic power of Stimpacks, Med-X, and sleep." Jennifer took her hand and stood.

Red supported Jennifer's other arm and the group made their way to the dining table in the next room. "And your extreme luck. None of the bullets split into shards, and one of them broke a rib. It kept the bullet from lodging into your spine." Jennifer sat down at the table and sighed gratefully.

"Thank God. You took that one out and left the other two in?" Red nodded and Kimba gave them a little startled look.

"Why would you leave them in? Won't that kill you? And why do you know that?"

Red ladled some broth into a bowl and brought it over. "Thanks so much, Red." Jennifer turned her attention back to Kimba. "And no, it won't kill me. Invasive surgery to remove them would have, though. Now scar tissue will grow around them and they won't move much. Thankfully, the bullets didn't shatter, so there's no worry of them hurting me in the future." She ate some of the broth. "And I know that because I was being trained as the second doctor for Vault 101."

Red gave her a look that Jennifer couldn't decipher easily - curiosity, maybe? "Why did you leave the Vault, anyway? Does it have something to do with whoever left before you?" At Jennifer's surprised look, Red elaborated. "Three Dog talked about both of you leaving on his radio station."

Jennifer stirred her spoon around her bowl to give herself a moment to think. "Yeah, something like that. My dad left in the middle of the night with no explanation, so I came after him." She felt a wry smile struggle onto her face. "We were raised to think that nothing survived out here after the War, so you can imagine my surprise when I immediately found civilization."

Kimba laughed a little at the story. "From what I hear, I wouldn't really call Megaton 'civilization'. What did your dad do in the Vault?"

Jennifer felt the smile drop off her face and let out a little thoughtful hum. "He was the first Vault doctor."

Red's eyebrows almost shot off her face, she raised them so quickly. "So they don't have a doctor anymore? That's...not good."

They both grimaced at the thought. "No, not particularly, but I couldn't stay and he, well, left. And it had better have been for a good reason!"

Kimba smirked at her. "Well, if he needs an ass kicking, I'm pretty sure anyone in Big Town would volunteer for the position." She lowered her voice conspiratorially. "Except maybe Red. She acts tough, but she's really way too nice."

Jennifer nodded her head in agreement, completely ignoring Red's token_ hey!_ of protest. It was true, after all. "Thanks, Kimba. It's good to know I've managed to get a whole town on my side." She felt the small smile creeping back onto her face. "All it took was being shot a few times."

Kimba shrugged her shoulders and leaned against the table. "I mean, it's worth it, isn't it? You didn't _die_, even if you did get a little close, but Red told me not to tell you that, and now I'm going to stop talking, because she's glaring at me."

Red was indeed glaring at the other girl, but she looked far too amused for it to be at all threatening. "I'm never letting you help with another patient again, if you keep spilling my secrets." Kimba tried to protest this assessment, but Red waved her off and turned her attention back to her patient. "Seriously though, Jennifer, you need more rest. So finish eating." That last bit was said with the snap in her tone that Jennifer privately thought of as her _Doctor's Orders!_ voice that brooked no argument. She learned that from her father and employed it whenever she needed to get someone to listen to her, and apparently Red had something similar.

Jennifer hurriedly finished the rest of her broth and leaned on the two of them to hobble back to her bed. She pulled the blanket up to her chin and fell into a dreamless sleep.

* * *

After another day of rest, she was ready to move on to Arefu. Her ribs were still a little tender, but her stitches had come out by mid-morning and she was starting to grow restless. Jennifer was beginning an impressive collection of scars. Two small indents on her midsection and on one of her ribs, a horizontal cut - about an inch long- above her right eyebrow, a three inch slice - diagonal - on her left bicep, and a weird twisty one on the outside of her left thigh.

And an inch-long cut on the inside of her right palm, but that was from when she lived in the vault, so it didn't count.

Red let Jennifer go from her goodbye hug. "Make sure to come and visit every once in a while, alright? Thanks for coming to get me and Shorty." Jennifer smiled at the other doctor.

"Thanks for keeping me alive. I'll try to bring some medical supplies by whenever I can. I can hear broadcasts from your short-wave radio on my Pip-Boy. I have its channel, so if you ever need me, just send out a call."

Red smiled. "Thanks. For everything."

* * *

Almost all of the overpasses Jennifer had seen in the wasteland so far had been ruined and collapsing. The air blew her hair back into her face, and the wind whistled around her. She pushed the strands irritatedly out of her face and regripped the straps of her bag. Now was not a good time to find out she was afraid of heights.

Dogmeat, not at all bothered by the altitude, was sniffing a wrecked car somewhere behind her. She looked up in time to see the silhouette of a man throw something. On her left, out of danger to her, a grenade exploded in a wave of heat and sound. She whipped her pistol out and fired off two shots. She was too far away to see if she hit him.

The silhouette put up his hands. "Woah! Hold your fire!" _Hold my fire?! What the hell!_ She kept Amata's pistol raised at the man. Dogmeat came screaming up the overpass and she whistled for him to heel. Dogmeat growled loudly and menacingly.

She slowly advanced towards the barricade and kept her sights trained on the man. "Why are you throwing grenades at people if they can't shoot back? Why throw things at all?"

"There's been a gang harassin' us. Breaking glass and slammin' on our doors every night for the past week. Killed one of our brahmin." He slowly dropped his hands back down to his sides. "I've been trying to keep watch, but I have to sleep sometime. And when I saw you coming up, well, I should've been watchin' closer. The vault suit is pretty noticeable, now that I'm lookin'. I'm sorry."

Jennifer slowly holstered her gun. "Apology accepted. I have a letter here for the Wests, from their daughter Lucy in Megaton. I'll go talk to them, if that's alright with you."

He waved her on. "Sure, sure. Name's Evan King, so you know."

* * *

Naturally, the Wests were dead and the brother was missing. Evan didn't seem to know anything about it, but she had a really bad feeling about the whole thing. Something seemed really...off...about the bodies. The bodies had bite marks on their necks, but they didn't look ripped out like when Dogmeat killed someone the same way. They had been completely clean, and the teeth marks looked almost...human. The whole thing was just really disturbing and left a sour taste in her mouth, so she decided to leave Dogmeat in Arefu with Evan King.

Jennifer waded through giant mutant shellfish and a ton of traps to find the entrance of their hideaway. At the end of the tunnel, likely leading into the train center, was a gate guarded by a man carrying a shotgun. Crouching down, she activated her most valuable find yet - a Stealth boy. The device would turn her mostly invisible, and she'd distract the guard and sneak inside.

Hooking the Stealth boy onto her Pip-Boy, she activated it with a _whoosh_. Light footsteps carried her behind the guard, and she sent an empty Nuka Cola bottle sailing past the light of the lantern.

The guard lifted his shotgun and went to investigate the noise. Jennifer carefully unlatched the gate and slipped inside.

The train center was a huge open area, with stairs leading to a second floor, and fairy lights hung over the place. On her right was a desk with a terminal. The terminal was powered up, so she selected the first entry: The Five Laws of The Family. What she read made Jennifer feel sick and angry. _These people are cannibals! They were trying to make Arefu into dinner!_ She had to find Ian and get him out. Then, she would come back and handle this cannibal problem for good.

She noticed that all of the other tunnels leading to the train center were closed off by debris. Jennifer carefully made her way up the stairs - actually escalators, but functionally stairs - to the second floor. There, a man in a long jacket with a makeshift sword stood overlooking the bottom floor. Sneaking past him, her Stealth boy let out a warning beep to indicate that the device's battery was almost drained. She froze as the man whipped around to stare directly at...well, _through _her. He carefully looked around the area, and slowly turned back to his observations.

Sighing in silent relief, she stalked to the only other door in the area. It had a terminal next to it, and powering the computer up revealed that a passcode was necessary to open the door.

Cursing, she started the manual hacking program. In this, she had to surf through different codes to determine the password. It was faster than her automatic decoding program, but the margin for failure was much higher. She had managed half the password before her Stealth boy deactivated with a loud, dramatic _whoosh_. The man overlooking the entrance turned and spotted her immediately.

Unsheathing his sword, his coat flared behind him as he ran towards her. "Stop your actions immediately!"

She whipped out her pistol and aimed at the gas tank on his back. "Nah, I don't think I will." She shot, and the gas tank exploded in a screaming ball of fire. Shouts of alarm followed the display, and she cocked her pistol, waiting for them to come.

* * *

Ian West killed his parents. He told her, after the fighting stopped and she opened the door. He ripped out their throats. He was whining - something about The Hunger, and how she didn't understand. Without a word, she gave him the letter from Lucy and walked away. She would go to Arefu, pick up Dogmeat, explain the situation to Evan King, and then head to Megaton. To tell Lucy her brother murdered their parents. _Dad and I may fight a lot, but I would never think to…_ She would be devastated if something happened to him.

She felt sick. She missed her dad, and Amata, and feeling safe. She wanted to curl up in bed and read books and eat snack cakes and not feel so lonely and terrified.

Jennifer reached the door that led outside, leaned against it, and cried.


	8. Chapter 8

After trading off her shotgun and shells, Moira showed her how to fix a few of the wiring problems on her laser rifle and sold her a new glass panel to replace the cracked one at the end of it. It still has a few internal problems - things Moira didn't have the parts to replace - but the power distribution is more effective. She bought the ammunition - Microfusion cells - to power it. Moira also painted a '101' in the middle of Jennifer's combat armor chest piece in a cobalt blue color. With that, she and Dogmeat left Megaton to find Galaxy News Radio station.

* * *

Jennifer had started listening to Three Dog, occasionally. He had reported on her and Dad leaving the vault, and the "second vault dweller" that disarmed the atomic bomb for Simms. Three Dog also did informational news reports: talking about Yao Guai, supermutants, and raiders.

There was also another danger he talked about. 'Feral ghouls' that lived in the subway tunnels and actually did attack people. They went insane from the radiation exposure, as opposed to regular ghouls that got lucky and only lost their skin. She hadn't really known what to expect when she entered the subway tunnels, but emaciated, screaming zombies trying to eat her and her dog was not it.

Holding the thing away from her face by its jaw, she quickly brought Amata's gun up and shot the thing in its milky eye. Blood splattered out the back of its head and it crumpled. "Ugh, gross!" Jennifer pushed the dead body off and stepped away from the ghouls.

She reloaded her handgun and picked her laser rifle up off the ground. The thing was much more powerful than anything else in her gun arsenal - surprisingly effective against supermutants - but she was careful with firing it. The ammo was too rare and Moira had only stocked seven MF cells. She wasn't sure how many shots were on each cell, and she didn't want to find out too quickly and end up with no ammo.

Jennifer pushed open the door leading to what was labeled on her map as 'Chevy Chase'. The area was open, with several wrecked cars spread around and ruined buildings lining the area. The air smelled strongly of ozone, an indicator that high powered laser rifles were being used. More supermutant bodies were lying on the ground, covered in cauterized wounds.

What sounded like...electronic voices, maybe...shouted ahead of her, and the sounds of fighting reached her ears. She ran to the ruckus, but by the time she reached the noise all the mutants were dead. Standing ahead of her were several hulking suits of power armor, carrying laser rifles, and covered in blue symbols. A sword in a circle, surrounded by wings, above a set of cogs.

During history class in the vault, they'd watched holovids about different events in American history. There had been clips about the liberation of Anchorage, Alaska at the end of the war. A lot of the soldiers had been wearing a different type of power armor, but the design was still similar enough for her to recognize.

One of the suits looked at her and stomped over. She couldn't make out any features, because the other person was wearing power armor and a helmet, but the suit had a second symbol on the left shoulder. A lion rampant in a circle, over a sword, set above a pair of wings. "I don't know who you are, but you don't belong here. Supermutants have overrun our brothers at Galaxy News Radio and we're going to back them up. We don't need civilians interfering with our operation." The buzzing voice was feminine and full of impatient irritation.

Jennifer felt small compared to all the armor looming above her, and the other suits gazes' were making her embarrassed - even though she hadn't even done anything wrong, as far as she was aware. "I'm sorry, I didn't mean to get in your way. I'm trying to go to GNR too. I just didn't know this place was so dangerous."

The woman almost didn't seem to believe her. "Have you been living under a rock? This is Downtown D.C. The entire place is crawling with muties!"

"I'm from a vault, so yes, I have literally been living under a rock. A big one. Usually it's called a mountain." One of the suits snickered quietly in the back of the group.

The woman shot a look back. "Reddin, shut up." She pointed a finger at Jennifer. "You, I don't have time for this. Follow us if you want, but stay out of our way. And don't do anything...stupid." She turned and started issuing orders to the other members, and they were off.

Jennifer mostly stuck with someone named Colvin in the back of the group. He was genial and polite, even though she was introduced to him as 'the stray'. Probably the least likely person here to bite her head off. She was also proud to say that she took down several of the mutants they came across getting to GNR and didn't miss a shot.

They'd arrived at the last building before GNR. Outside, the sounds of fighting reached them. The woman - she must be in charge, their commander or something - issued out orders. Colvin turned to Jennifer. "Come with me. We'll have the best view." She didn't think that was a suggestion._ Probably getting me out of the way so I don't 'interfere with the operation'._

Jennifer took point and the two made their way to the top floor. There weren't any mutants left in the building, and the two fired on the mutants outside GNR. Within minutes the area was clear. She reloaded her rifle - MF cells get around 24 shots each, she's learned, and she's down to six cells, now - and turned to Colvin. "Should we head down now? Everything looks good."

"Orders say I have to stay up here for a while, but you're free to go inside the building." He pointed out the blown apart wall to the entrance. The door was surrounded by more people in power armor that were using sandbags as fortifications. They all had the same symbol on their right shoulder pad: the sword, circle, gears, and wings. Only the group that she'd followed here wore the lion rampant on the left shoulder. _Must be a special group._

She and Dogmeat walked down to the entrance of the building that led into the square outside GNR. She'd gotten about halfway across the square and was passing the fountain. Reddin was on the far side, near a stack of hollowed out buses. She was saying something about celebrating and Vargas, a few yards away, was reprimanding her.

Jennifer wasn't listening to them. There was a sound… nearby, echoing, getting louder… It sounded huge, like it was smashing everything in its way. The ground was trembling, rumbling. The hair on Dogmeat's neck stood up and he growled. Nobody else was listening. "There's something coming!" The woman in charge - maybe, it's hard to tell when they're all wearing the same armor, but she had a special blue symbol on her forearm, a rank - looked at her quickly from where she was standing talking to one of the guards nearby. _SMASH!_ "By the buses!"

The commander waved to the other two. "Vargas! Reddin! Move away from the buses!" Vargas retreated but Reddin either wasn't listening or couldn't hear her. It was almost on top of them…!

The stack of buses exploded in a ball of nuclear fire. A wave of heat and sound rolled over her, and Jennifer stumbled from the force. Reddin crashed into the outside wall of a building and didn't get up. A monster, huge, thirty foot tall, slammed his weapon to move the vehicles from his path, roaring. A screech of metal against concrete and they went flying.

"Behemoth!"

Around her, the suits of power armor exploded into action. Lasers and bullets slammed into the monster's hide. _Run. Get the high ground._ Jennifer flew over the rubble littering the square, Dogmeat by her side, back to the building she had left Colvin in. She climbed sets of stairs, moving faster than she ever had, fumbling with her bag. In it, something she had made in Big Town while she was resting. Something for emergencies. This was an emergency.

She climbed onto the roof, pulled out her lighter, and lit the first of her makeshift grenades. She threw the it as hard as she could, all her weight behind it. The bomb sailed through the air and landed between the monster's back and its armor, near the neck. A flurry of sparks flew into the air and a bright white fire filtered from inside the armor, smoke rising.

The behemoth screamed in pain and fury and turned to her. It raised its weapon - an enormous fire hydrant on a pole - and slammed it into the edge of the roof, near her position. A chunk of the building crumpled on that side, cracks spreading along the rest of the plaster. She ran to the other side and fumbled with the lighter. The fuse caught and she threw it just as the monster opened its mouth to scream at her. The second bomb landed in the middle of its open mouth, near the back.

The thing dropped its weapon to paw at its face. Smoke and light filtered out of its unevenly closed mouth. It stumbled and collapsed to both knees. With one final groan, the behemoth toppled to the ground, dead.

* * *

She wasn't sure how to get down, actually. The ladder leading down to the top floor had been part of the building that had fallen away. Good thing she'd left Dogmeat on the ground floor, because he may have been crushed otherwise. Some of the soldiers in the square went to inspect the body of the behemoth.

She lowered herself on the edge of the collapsed roof and swung into the top room. The stairs were still intact, and the corner of the building had been opened like a can, exposing the inside of the top floor. She climbed down the stairs, slower this time. Colvin followed her. Her healing rib hurt from the swift climb up. Dogmeat rejoined her side and they exited the building.

"What the hell was in that?" Colvin sounded a little impressed. _Finally. Maybe now they won't think I'm an idiot that can't do anything._

She wanted to rub her ribs to get the soreness out, but her armor was in the way. She probably shouldn't, regardless. "Thermate TH3. The things can melt concrete and steel. I thought they'd be useful."

He gave an electronic chuckle. "Well, I'd say they were definitely useful. Good job." His armored hand clapped her on the back and she stumbled.

He rejoined the group of people that she'd followed here. She passed by them, until the commander - or whatever her title was - stopped her. "Vaultie, come here." Jennifer sighed internally and turned, raising an eyebrow. "Nice work with the behemoth. Those grenades kept a lot of people from getting hurt."

Jennifer shrugged. "Thanks. I wanted to help somehow. And, um." She wasn't sure if they would mind, but… "Sorry about Reddin, and the others." Vargas sighed.

The woman nodded her head once, to acknowledge what Jennifer said, and turned to Vargas. "It's not your fault, Vargas. Reddin proved here that she was good enough for the Pride. When we get back to the Citadel, I'll talk to the scribes and have it chronicled that she passed her test."

Jennifer stood there for a second, indecisive. "Well, um, see you guys inside?" She turned and entered the building.

* * *

Like most other people she had met so far, Three Dog wanted something from Jennifer before helping her. After all that grand talk about the fucking Good Fight, he was blackmailing her to get what he wanted. She had to go to the Museum of Technology in the Mall that's infested with flesh-eating supermutants and replace his stupid satellite antenna thing for his dumbass radio show. She would've offered to help him even if he had told her the information she needed in the first place. At the very least, he let her borrow a room for the night.

She exited the recording studio and looked down to the building foyer, where she left her bag and Dogmeat at the bottom of the stairs leading up to the second floor. There, Dogmeat was playing tug-of-war with one of the soldiers. She watched the two with a smile. Most of the people that weren't on guard had disengaged their power armor to save fuel.

Moira had sold her a ratty teddy bear for a cheap price soon after Jennifer had brought Dogmeat to Megaton for the first time. Her dog loved it. The bear was soft, easy to throw, and worked for the wrestling games he sometimes liked to play.

Dogmeat saw her standing at the top of the stairs looking down at him and he let out a bark. He raced across the tiled floor, sliding, and up the stairs to get pets. She leaned down and scratched him behind the ears.

She descended the stairs and the man walked over to her and offered the toy. He was probably the tallest person in the room, which is saying something, because most of the people in the room were taller than her. "I hope you don't mind. He got it out of the bag and started making a fuss." He smiled slightly at Dogmeat. "A cute fuss." Dogmeat grumbled.

Jennifer waved it off and took the toy. "Not at all. He likes attention." Dogmeat gently grabbed the toy from her and started shaking it around. She offered her hand to the man. "Jennifer Williams."

He shook it firmly. His hand was bigger than hers, and he had rough callouses on his fingertips and the bottom of his palm. _Why are all of these people so tall?_

"Greg Bear. But you can call me Kodiak." She let her hand drop to her side. She looked at him closely to make sure he wasn't joking.

"You mean...like the bear?" He nodded his head and a swell of amusement bubbled in her chest; she tried not to laugh. "Okay."

A woman walked over to the pair. She was stunningly pretty, with dark blonde hair and warm brown skin. Her blue eyes shone with intensity and sharp intelligence. She was also among the list of people much taller than Jennifer. "Your dog has been good for morale, and he's well behaved for a wasteland mutt. What's his name?" Jennifer recognized her as the commander from outside by her voice.

"Dogmeat." She felt a tiny bit defensive at the other woman's incredulous look. "Don't look like that, I didn't pick it. Who are you people anyway?"

Kodiak looked surprised. "You don't know?"

"Is it really not obvious? I'm from a vault. I wear a vault suit. I have a Pip-Boy! No, I don't know."

The woman pat Kodiak's shoulder. "Don't worry about it. I stepped right into that one earlier, too." She looked back at Jennifer. "My name is Sarah Lyons. We're members of the Brotherhood of Steel. I'm a Sentinel and squad commander of the Lyons' Pride. I don't believe I caught your name."

Looking between the two of them, Jennifer smiled widely. Amata always said it made her look exactly like Dad, because of the crinkles they'd get at the corners of their eyes. "I'm Jennifer Williams. Does everyone make name puns in the Brotherhood, or is it just the two of you?"

Sarah smirked at her. Jennifer blushed. "It's a VIP club, so yeah, it's just us."

Jennifer absently rubbed the scar on her right palm. "What does the Brotherhood do, exactly? Fight the mutants downtown? I haven't seen any of you further north."

Kodiak answered this time. "We're based out of the ruins of the Pentagon, now called the Citadel. So we do primarily fight the mutants in the D.C. area."

Sarah nodded in agreement. "Years ago, we had much further reach in the north. But there have been a long series of complications that forced us to pull our people back." The woman gave a resigned shrug. "We do our best, though. If we don't try to keep the mutants from killing everyone and everything in the Capital Wasteland, who will?"

Jennifer was a little dazzled. "Your best really is a lot. I haven't met another group that's just trying to help people for nothing in return. I'd hate to see this place without your help - everything up north probably would've been overrun."

Sarah looked a little stunned by her honesty. Jennifer hoped she hadn't overdone it - she's never been good with other people - but then Sarah smiled at her kindly. "I appreciate that. It's easy to forget, sometimes, how much good we're doing when we don't see the wider effects."

Another Brotherhood member came running up to the group, saying something or other about a Knight Paladin or some such - how medieval - and supplies. Jennifer wasn't listening, really, she was too flustered to pay close enough attention. Sarah gave the messenger a firm nod and looked at Jennifer for a second. "We have to handle this, but it was nice to meet you, vaultie."

"I, um, yeah. You, too." Kodiak gave her an amused look, and the two walked off.

Jennifer left for her room soon after that. The sun had already started to set, and she needed a good night's rest. Tomorrow, she'd face the Mall.

* * *

A/N: After checking Sarah's character page on the wiki, I noticed that her Fallout Shelter sprite has dark skin when not wearing her power armor, especially compared to her in-game model. Her character description has been adjusted accordingly, as I assume that's the most recent canon depiction of her. Also, go watch some thermate explosions on Youtube, it's cool.


	9. Chapter 9

Jennifer wasn't sure it ever got boring on the surface. There was so much to do and see! The whirring sound warned her of the minigun a split second before she ducked back into the trench.

"HA HA HA! DIE!"

Things to do such as get shot at.

It had been a long damn day. One would think that the Mall would be relatively simple to navigate, compared to other parts of D.C. It was a rectangular shaped area with buildings on the edges. She had seen pictures of the Mall in books. She knew what to expect. However, some dumbass decided to dig trenches throughout the area, making navigation five times as difficult. _Have these people never read about World War I? Honestly._ Then, supermutants had infested the trenches and were defending them tooth and nail. Jennifer just didn't have the bullets to deal with this.

She pulled the pin on her last grenade and threw it in the general direction of the mutant. Its screams followed her and the dog along the trench and up the stairs. The two ran to the outer edge of the area, near the buildings. One of them looked slightly less decrepit than the others. _Museum of History, huh? Good enough!_ She ran over to what used to be escalators leading down and hid behind them. Jennifer didn't hear any mutants chasing after them. Leaning out, she scanned the area. Looks like its cle-

"What's up, tourist?"

Jennifer let out a short scream and fell over on her side, pistol clattering. The hair on Dogmeat's neck stood up, and he let out a menacing growl. Behind them, over by the entrance, was what looked like a ghoul reclining in a metal chair. She raised her beer in a salute when she noticed Jennifer looking back.

"What the hell! Where did you come from?!" Dogmeat barked aggressively, and she whistled for him to heel.

The ghoul took a sip of her beer. "Just been enjoying the show. Good job with the supermutants." She jerked a thumb back in the direction of the door. "I keep an eye on the outside for Underworld. Make sure nothing unsavory gets in."

Jennifer grumpily picked herself up and dusted off her jumpsuit. Holstering her pistol, she turned and started making her way to the woman. "Okay, great, Underworld is a city? And what's your name?"

The ghoul clicked her tongue. "Don't know if I like your tone, tourist." She threw her empty beer bottle, and it shattered against a far wall. "Underworld is ghoul-central. Most of us congregate here. Just easier that way. And I'm Willow."

"It's great to meet you, Willow. Now, can I go inside, or do I have to solve a riddle?"

Willow frowned at her. "Don't be such a prick. Yeah, go on inside, have fun."

Great, now she's made Jennifer feel bad. "Sorry, it's just been a long day. Come on, Dogmeat."

* * *

Jennifer's not exactly sure what she was expecting with a name like Underworld, but they really did go all-out with the decor. Somebody thought they were clever and named everything out of Dante's _Inferno_. She ended up in a bar, The Ninth Circle. The barkeep, she couldn't remember his name, was telling her about the guard in the corner. Apparently he was brainwashed, so he had to follow any orders someone gave him. _Well, that sounds a lot like slavery._ The longer she sat there, the more a plan formed in her head.

Jennifer interrupted whatever inane thing the man was saying. "Could I buy Charon's contract from you?" The man gave her a look and laughed.

"Sure. That'll be two thousand caps." He grinned at her, probably thinking she didn't have that kind of money. He let out a surprised sound when she counted out the caps and slid them across the table.

He gave her a considering look. "Hm. This will be enough to hire a replacement for Charon and have plenty left over for myself." He leaned down and opened the safe set in the ground. He handed a piece of paper to her. "Charon's contract is yours. Have fun."

Jennifer nodded at him and approached the ghoul in the corner. He didn't even turn to look at her. "Talk to Ahzrukhal."

She held out the contract to him. "I have your contract now. You don't work for him."

Charon's head snapped around to meet her gaze. "You purchased my contract? So, I am no longer in his service." She nodded her assent, and he pushed away from the wall. "If you'll give me a moment, I have some business I need to take care of." He walked over to Ahzrukhal and exchanged a few words with the man. A moment later, Charon shot his former employer twice in the head.

Calmly collecting the money off the counter, he returned to Jennifer and handed her the caps. "Alright, let's go."

She eyed the shotgun holstered on his back. "Damn. You don't mess around, huh? Are we going to get kicked out for this?"

Charon met her gaze evenly. "No. Ahzrukhal was an evil bastard."

Dogmeat sniffed Charon's boot. "Well, that's fair, I guess."

* * *

Jennifer can't seem to go anywhere without ending up helping someone. She just wanted to get some medical supplies and somehow she ended up waking a woman up from a coma. Then the woman, Reilly, wanted her to help get her mercenary gang out of trouble. She sighed internally. _Why am I so nice?_

So Jennifer, Charon, and Dogmeat were all fighting through the Statesman Hotel. The entrance was blocked off, so they had to enter through an adjacent building - Our Lady of Hope Hospital. Not what she would've named it, but nobody is asking her. They'd had to cross over to the Statesman Hotel by climbing over a collapsed crane. Charon is _never _allowed to tell _anyone _she is scared of heights. Under threat of death.

Jennifer fired off a few shots around a corner at a supermutant. The monster let out an angry yell, and Charon finished him off with a blast from his shotgun. The ghoul was proving to be useful, but she still planned to hand off his contract at the soonest convenience. She just wasn't comfortable with having someone like him in her employ. Too close to slavery for her comfort.

Jennifer spotted the ammo crate that Reilly mentioned. "Charon, will you carry this?" He grunted and picked it up. "Thanks, let's go find these Rangers."

It took a few minutes, but they fought their way to the stairway that led up to the roof. Jennifer held the door for her group and they made their way up to the roof.

* * *

Explosions shook the ground under them, and Dogmeat let out a grumble of displeasure. Covering almost all the free space of the roof were the bodies of supermutants. An arm flew past the group and landed with a _thud _behind them.

What must have been Reilly's Rangers were standing further back on the roof and they looked...pretty awesome, actually. Like comic book heroes.

"So, you're the Rangers? Reilly sent me to help you." A man waved them over with a friendly smile.

"The name's Butcher. I'm the medic. And yeah, we're Reilly's Rangers." A tanned woman with short hair interrupted.

"You planning on passing out that ammo sometime soon, sweetheart?" She pat her minigun fondly. "Eugene here is runnin' on empty."

Jennifer blinked in surprise. "Uh, yeah, sorry. I just need to put in the code." Charon set down the crate and the mercenaries swarmed to refill their guns.

A man about Jennifer's height - finally! - turned to look at her. "Sorry about her. I'm Donovan, and that well-mannered lady over there is Brick."

The woman, Brick, shot them an incredulous look. "Fuck off, Donovan! I'm as well mannered as I need to be." Brick smirked and winked at Jennifer.

She could feel her face starting to heat up. _Um!_ "That's, um, good. Reilly's over in Underworld, so we should probably go. There. Because she's waiting for us."

Donovan nodded. "Damn, she made it far. Well, I need a fission battery to make that elevator work. Otherwise, we'll all be crawling down those stairs."

Jennifer had one in her bag, so after a few minutes they were all good to go. The group made their way out of the Hotel and back towards Underworld. They had to fight off a few groups of supermutants, but it was significantly easier with a large, well-armed group. Reilly was ecstatic to see the group, and as far as Jennifer was aware, they were going to be hanging out in Underworld while Reilly fully recovered.

As for Jennifer, Charon, and Dogmeat, it was only around noon, and the group still had to face the Museum of Technology.


	10. Chapter 10

The rusty _groan _of the door as it opened made Jennifer wince. She already knew better than to hope there wouldn't be any supermutants in the building, because they had infested the whole D.C. area. Every nook and cranny had a mutant crawling around in it, but that begs the question: where the hell had these things _come _from? She didn't think they were a result of the bombs falling, like the ghouls. And where was their base? It would certainly make things easier for everyone if someone got rid of it.

A fallen plane was their first greeting into the building. Although the foyer was a mess, it didn't seem as though there were any supermutants in it. Quietly, though, up the stairs to the second floor, she could hear the shuffling sounds she had started to associate with supermutants walking. The hair on Dogmeat's neck stood on end, and he crouched closer to the floor.

At her nod, Charon started up the stairs and Jennifer raised her laser rifle. Charon leaned next to the doorway and knocked on the frame: a sharp _tap tap tap_. A shout later, and a supermutant carrying a hunting rifle barreled through the door. Jennifer shot at him, but he raised his rifle the moment she fired. The laser impacted with his hand rather than the face she had been aiming for, and his screams echoed throughout the building.

Charon shot the back of its head, and the supermutant tumbled to the ground with a _crunch _The smell of burning flesh mixed unpleasantly with ozone, and Jennifer wrinkled her nose. The flesh of the mutant's hand had melted onto the stock of the hunting rifle. Dogmeat followed her up the stairs to Charon.

The group continued throughout the building in a similar manner. They had just finished a fight with a few supermutants when her rifle made a slightly scary whirring sound. "Son of a bitch!" Jennifer knocked her hand into the barrel of the laser rifle. "I think my gun just _broke_!"

Charon raised an eyebrow at her, or he would have if he had any skin on his face. "Must be something wrong internally. If you try to shoot it, the wires might catch fire."

Jennifer had the temptation to _throw_ the _damned rifle_ into the wall and see how it liked that. Luckily, she is a mature adult who can handle unexpected, life-threatening inconveniences and simply slung the rifle over her shoulder and unholstered her pistol.

They passed through what must be a demonstration vault. It was kinda nice, she guessed, though the exhibit didn't quite capture the soul-crushing depression only a life in the vault could create. Maybe that didn't have anything to do with the vault and it was just her. Maybe that's just what happened when you only had _one _friend and an inattentive, constantly disappointed family member to spend time with.

The rest of the exhibits, though, cheered her up immensely. Jennifer _loved _space. She tries not to dwell on the past, but she can't help but resent pre-war America for getting involved in a nuclear war. All those years of advancement were lost for nothing. Jennifer is convinced, personally, that if they hadn't gotten caught up in all those wars, they would have been able to establish colonies on Mars by now. Of course, she's sure they'll get there again some day. This is a temporary setback in the grand scheme of human history. But she would _love _to be able to go to space, and that just won't happen in her lifetime.

Soon enough, they were at the exhibit with the sacrificial satellite dish. She would've been saddened if this was the real Lunar Lander, but thankfully it was only a replica. All she had to do was unscrew a few bolts and hand it to Charon to carry. She was going to miss him when he left. His long arms were very useful for carrying things.

Down the stairs, around the bodies of supermutants, and out the door of the Museum of Technology. Now all they had to do was cross the trench-warfare-hellscape to get the the Washington Monument. Easy peasy, right?

Jennifer needs to stop jinxing herself. Nothing about this was easy peasy. To be fair, it had actually been going fairly well, until some guys called the 'Talon Company' had confronted her near the outer perimeter of the Mall. One of them had started saying something about Burke - the suit jerk back in Megaton - and disarming the bomb. Called her the "saint from the Vault" - which is as dumb a name as she had ever heard - then they started firing at her!

Although, this kinda makes sense. Burke had said something about working for a big wig in a tower - Tenpony Tower, maybe? - and so she did, technically, kill someone's employee.

Dogmeat raced past her legs and latched onto one of the mercenary's kneecaps. It exploded in a shower of blood, and a moment later, Dogmeat had finished chewing off the guy's face. Charon had set the satellite on the ground and laid down enough covering fire for Jennifer to kill one of the other mercs with a well-placed shot.

Charon ran forward and sucker punched the last merc. The man fell to the ground, barely conscious, and Charon swiftly picked up the other's assault rifle. Jennifer stalked forward and aimed her pistol at his head. "Who hired out the contract on me?"

The guy wiped the blood flowing out of his nose. "Mister Tenpenny." Ah, so it wasn't Ten_pony_ but Ten_penny_. She was close. "Though Talon Company would've come after you eventually." He grinned at her, and his teeth were bloody. "So, you gonna let me go? C'mon, we both know you won't kill me. You're too nice and _good_." He spit it out almost like a curse, or an insult. He almost sounded like Butch, of all people.

Jennifer shot a bullet into his kneecap, and he leaned forward with a shout to wrap his hands around it. He looked into her eyes, and she could see the fear in them.

She put a bullet in his head, and his body slumped to the ground.

The rest of the trip went by fairly uneventfully. There was a patrol of Brotherhood of Steel soldiers stationed at the Monument to protect it; probably part of their agreement with Three Dog. After speaking to the guard at the front gate, they were allowed in to take an elevator to the top. The ride to the top will haunt her nightmares forever. The thing was creaky and rusted to all hell. It swayed precariously, and Jennifer was sure they were going to fall to their deaths.

She wasn't sure she could handle the ride down.

Regardless, Charon was pleased to be able to set the satellite down and rest his arms. Jennifer quickly unscrewed the broken satellite and switched it with the new one. She just left the old one there. Maybe someone would repair it eventually. Three Dog was going to have a problem when another supermutant shot the new satellite, but that wouldn't be her problem.

Jennifer had been thinking a bit about what to do with Charon. He was good at following instructions and carrying things; she also got the feeling he needed a break from all the violence after doing Ahzrukhal's dirty work for so long. She quickly pulled up the writing function on her Pip-Boy. She took a few seconds to type out a note and went over to the terminal that was barely functioning at the top of the Monument. She plugged in her Pip-Boy, transferred the note, and printed it out. Folding it neatly, she passed it to Charon, who looked at her quizzically.

"When we leave the Monument, we're going to go our separate ways. I've really appreciated your help so far, but I think I need to travel alone. Make your way to Megaton and give this note to Moira Brown, in Craterside Supply. She'll be your new employer." He watched her pull his contract out of her bag and took it when she handed it over. He held it in the hand with her note. "You're officially out of my employ, now."

He gave her a simple nod, and the three of them made their way to the elevator and descended. Walking out of the gate, she and Dogmeat started in the direction of GNR. Jennifer still had to talk to Three Dog and find out where her dad went. She turned back to Charon, who had started traveling in a different direction, towards Megaton. "See you in Megaton, Charon!" Dogmeat barked his goodbye.

The ghoul turned his head and held up a hand, in a wave goodbye.

Sarah Lyons and her group were already gone by the time Jennifer got there, but that was to be expected. However she did feel a little… disappointed, maybe, that she wouldn't be seeing them. Which was weird. She shook the feeling off and opened the door to Three Dog's recording studio.

"I got your satellite installed. I don't know if you checked your signals yet, but they should be good to go." Three Dog wheeled around in his chair at her voice, grinning vividly.

"Hell yeah the signals are good to go! I was just about to start recording, so you can go ahead and say something. Get over here!"

She took a hesitant step forward. "But, I, um-" Three Dog swiveled around to face his recording setup and held up a hand for silence.

He pressed a few buttons and some of the lights flashed. "People of the Capital Wasteland, you can HEAR _ME!_ Yeeeeaaa haaaa! You can't stop the signal, baby!" Three Dog waved her over and Jennifer stood behind his chair, looking over his shoulder. "All thanks to this lovely lady here, the kid from Vault 101. Go ahead and say something."

She leaned a bit closer to the mic. "Um. I'm glad I could help get GNR back on the air."

He elbowed her backwards lightly; enough to let her know that was good. "Isn't she great, folks? Our own little vault saint."

_What is with people and that title?_ The saying reminded her of the Talon Mercs, and Jennifer frowned a bit. Three Dog turned off his recording equipment and got up from his chair.

"Wait, was any of that live?" She had thought he reported live, but she also knew the radio ran throughout the night.

"Nah, I'll just use that as the intro for a news report." He clapped his hands together enthusiastically. "Now, I'm sure you want to know all about where your dad went."

Thank God. "Yes, please, that's what I came here for."

Three Dog told her all about Rivet City, the partially sunken pre-war battleship. Apparently, it was similar to Megaton: a huge settlement, but more untrustworthy of outsiders. Makes sense, it is in the middle of the D.C. area. Dad went to go meet an old colleague of his - one Madison Li. She worked on a water purification project with her parents "back in the day". Well, that was the only lead Jennifer had.

Time to make her way to Rivet City.


	11. Chapter 11

It took her three days to get to Rivet City. With her laser rifle out of commision, it was practically impossible for her to fight any supermutants. Amata's pistol really was useless against them. Her plan devolved into: one, activate a stealth boy and two, don't stop moving. Any rest consisted of very short cat naps with Dogmeat standing guard and all her food came out of cans eaten on the move. It was her most hellish experience so far on the surface, bar none.

* * *

Jennifer had seen pictures of battleships. Hell, she'd even seen _holovids _about them. They were huge: big enough to hold whole groups of old-world soldiers. They'd been around for centuries. None of these facts prepared her for facing the real thing. The battleship Rivet City was established in was _enormous_. They hadn't even sent out the bridge yet, and already she could hear the rusted metal shifting and groaning from her spot across the Potomac.

The intercom bolted on the post next to her crackled. Jennifer could vaguely see a group of men by the entrance. An authoritative voice sounded over the speaker. "What's your business in Rivet City, stranger?"

She stepped forward and pressed her finger to the button. "I need to speak with Madison Li. It's important." She let the button go with a _click_. None of the men moved on the other side of the bridge. A moment later, the voice crackled over the intercom again.

"Alright, we're sending the bridge over now. Don't try anything." A scream of rusty metal against metal, and the bridge started to move. With a great _clang_, it fell into place.

Jennifer dragged her feet across the bridge and resolutely didn't look over the sides. The battleship before her loomed ominously, and it cast everything around her in shadow. Two men in black armor, she assumed they were guards, stood attentively but didn't say anything to her. The third man stood by the intercom and spoke when she was within hearing distance.

"I'm Chief Harkness, head of security at Rivet City. As long as you don't try anything, you're welcome here. And keep an eye on that dog."

Jennifer gave him a tired nod. "I'll keep two eyes on him." The man rolled his eyes, but he looked a little amused. "Where would I find Doctor Li?"

He opened the door leading further into the ship and held out a hand, indicating for her to enter. She walked inside and he followed her through; the door shut with a loud _slam_. They stood at the top of a set of stairs, leading down into a huge room full of merchant stalls and a crowd of people.

He pointed to the other end of the hangar. "You see that door, by the stairs?" At her nod, he continued. "Go through, and go down one level. Then just follow the signs to the laboratory." Easy enough.

Jennifer smiled at him. "Thanks, Chief. See you later." With that, she descended the stairs and entered the throng of people.

* * *

Megaton hadn't been too crowded. Sure, there were a lot of people, but they were mostly dispersed throughout the city. The only crowded place she had been was Moriarty's Saloon.

The Rivet City Marketplace felt like the entire population of Megaton had been dropped in it and left to its own devices. The huge room had lights on the ceiling and in the market stalls, but it still felt almost too dark for the space it took up. The whole place smelled unwashed, but there was something else, too. A briney, rusted smell that overlaid everything.

Different groups of people mingled in the open space and sported various sorts of clothes or armor; they carried a wide assortment of weapons and gear. Most had a sort of undercut style, or just shorter hair in general. Merchants leaned out of their stalls and shouted their wares, if they weren't busy with a customer already. People stood around drinking and talking and laughing.

Jennifer was jostled the whole way through the crowd, but nobody really bothered her. Dogmeat practically glued himself to her side to avoid getting lost. _Maybe I should get a leash for this kind of thing._ They reached the door, and it took both her hands to pry open the latch. The stairwell was brighter and smaller than the hangar had been.

Jennifer took a moment to just breathe. She wanted to lean down and rub Dogmeat's ears, but she might fall over and pass out._ Get to the lab then sleep_. She repeated it as a mantra in her mind as blood rushed loudly through her ears. Stomp down the steps and find the sign. Follow it left, down a hallway, right, down a hallway, left again, then finally, she found it.

With great effort, she opened the door and entered the lab.

* * *

Doctor Li wasn't there. _Of course_, she wasn't. Some of the lab assistants said she was _somewhere_, doing _something_ of great importance. Jennifer wanted to lie down under a table for sixteen hours, but that train of thought was interrupted by a very loud old man dressed in an immaculate suit.

"Excuse me, miss! You wouldn't happen to be interested in a job, would you? I could use someone of your…" his eyes flickered to the laser rifle hanging over her shoulder "...caliber."

Jennifer sighed to express her heartfelt exhaustion. He didn't seem to pay it any mind. Fine, then. "What do you want?"

The man looked mildly taken aback at her short tone but rallied quickly. "I'm looking for someone to retrieve a piece of property for me. My name is Doctor Zimmer. You see, I'm from the Commonwealth, and there-"

Jennifer could not possibly bear listening to this man for a moment longer. "Cut to the chase before I leave."

Zimmer paused. "I'm looking for an android. It's different from the machines you would know here. Its a type of synthetic humanoid."

A sharp nod. She'd read about how the pre-war government had tried to create something similar, but the project had been shelved in favor of other military tactics. "I know what androids are. He escaped?" She wants to see how he'll react to her wording.

"_It_ has malfunctioned and left the Commonwealth. You're interested in helping me find it?" She's definitely interested in something, here, and it's not helping this slaver retrieve his synthetic man. The thought process wasn't particularly difficult to follow for herself, personally._ If it looks like a duck, quacks like a duck, thinks like a duck . . ._

"Yes. Are there any leads?"

The guard behind Zimmer produced a holotape from one of his many pockets. She turned it over in her hands. The outer casing was unremarkable. No scuffs, writing, or distinguishable marks. Zimmer nodded at the tape in her hands. "Listen to that. There is a man who was contacted by the android: Doctor Preston. Speak to him and see if he has anything else for you. When you find my property, report back to me."

She inserted the holotape into the player of her Pip-Boy, but didn't start it. "Sure, Zimmer. Don't worry."

* * *

After a significant time navigating the twisting halls of Rivet City, she came across the Weatherly Hotel. Jennifer immediately paid a small sum of money for a room and promptly fell asleep for almost the entire next day. The headache she had been nursing was gone but was replaced by an incredible hunger.

Now that she wasn't trying to pass out on her feet, Jennifer could appreciate how well the room was maintained. It smelled of some cleaner - _Abraxo, maybe?_ \- and the floor and walls looked clean, with minimal rust. The sheets and bed had been even softer than the one in her Megaton home.

She pulled on her boots and pistol belt, but left her combat armor and bag in the room. Slinging her laser rifle over her shoulder, she whistled for Dogmeat. "Let's go, boy."

* * *

Jennifer dropped off her laser rifle at Flak N' Shrapnel's for repair, and stopped by Gary's Galley to eat a, frankly, _alarming _amount of food. Then she had to go back around and traverse the hallways to find the Doctor's office.

Which turned out to be across the hall from the lab. Oh, well.

Jennifer was hit by the overwhelming smell of disinfectant as she entered. The bright, fluorescent lights assaulted her eyes and she was immediately sent back to Vault 101's clinic. It was not a comforting or happy memory. Shaking off the discomfiting feeling, she stepped forward as Doctor Preston looked up.

"Hello, young lady. And what might you need?" He eyed her vault suit and snapped his fingers. "Oh, are you the one Three Dog's been talking about?" Preston gave her a friendly smile. "Good job with Megaton. Now, what can I help you with?"

His friendly disposition threw her off balance a little. _Who is this nice so early in the morning? Even if it is one in the afternoon._ Jennifer nervously cleared her throat. "Uh, yeah. That's me. I heard that you had a holotape about an android? If you don't mind, I'd like to listen to it."

Preston reached for one of the cabinet handles and pulled it open. "Sure, go ahead and keep it. The whole thing is a big hoax, anyhow."

This holotape was significantly more scratched and scuffed than the previous one had been. The plastic was a weird, pale color, like it had been left in the sun for too long. It resembled others that she had seen in the wasteland so far. "Thanks, doctor."

Stepping into the hall, Jennifer began the holotape that was already in her Pip-Boy. The android's words echoed down the hall and reverberated in her mind. _Self-determination is not a malfunction._ Facial reconstruction she could believe. But the way he said he'd_ be a new man_... were constructing false memories possible? Why would he even go to such lengths? Would he age like a human? What would he think if he didn't? How far did his plan go?

Jennifer shakily ejected the tape created by the android and entered Doctor Preston's tape. The android had been looking for a doctor and a technician. She wondered if she could find someone like that in Rivet City. _Why else would Zimmer be here if the android wasn't in the city?_

She remembered seeing a junk peddler in the marketplace. Seagrave or something. She stored the two played holotapes in one of her pockets and set off to see if the man knew anything.

* * *

As a matter of fact, Seagrave Holmes - _that _was the name! - did know something. He had another holotape for her. The android and whoever was working to help him had acquired all of the tech necessary to construct a new face and fabricate memories. Jennifer almost wished she knew what a circuit neutralizer actually _was _so she could completely appreciate the man's enthusiasm for it. Her field of study was physical medicine, but she did know a thing or two about computers, mostly programming. This whole thing went a bit over her head, however.

Now all she had to do was find the person with enough skill to do this sort of thing. It didn't seem like Doctor Preston or Seagrave Holmes knew who had done it. She wondered who would know anything abou-

A hand shot out of an empty room and roughly pulled her against someone. Jennifer saw the door closing before her and panicked. She tried elbow her attacker, but then the cold sensation of a knife at her throat stopped her. Dogmeat barked and scratched furiously from the other side of the door. "What do you want?"

"For you to stop asking so many questions. I know you were hired by Zimmer to track down the synthetic man." It sounded like a woman's voice, but maybe…

"Is it you? Are you the android?" The knife pressed further into her throat and the burning sensation let her know that it had broken the skin. Jennifer stopped talking.

"Listen carefully. On your right is a component taken from the synth. You will give this component to Doctor Zimmer and tell him the synth is dead. Are these instructions clear?" Jennifer made an agreeable noise. "Good. I will be watching you until Zimmer leaves the city entirely." The distinct, electronic _beep _of a stealth boy activating and the smell of ozone washed over her.

The person let her go and Jennifer whipped around. She appeared completely alone in the room, although she obviously wasn't. She stepped to her left and grabbed what looked sort of like a microchip mixed with a pilot light. Jennifer gave the room one last scan. "I wasn't going to turn the android back in to Zimmer. I just wanted to help."

Jennifer heaved the door open and Dogmeat sped inside to stand next to her leg, growling dangerously. This person obviously hadn't thought their plan through. Her dog could easily smell and attack them if she let him do so. At her word, Dogmeat stopped growling and followed her out into the hallway.

* * *

Doctor Zimmer was disappointed by the death of his 'property'. He waxed poetic about the tragedy of it all, and the harshness of the 'barbaric wasteland'. He soon left Rivet City to return back to the Commonwealth - wherever that was. And Jennifer didn't even get paid for any of this!

Grumbling, she determinedly walked towards the security chief, Harkness. She would get down to the bottom of this, even if it killed her. And it might. Jennifer could feel the itch on the back of her neck that meant someone was still watching her. The woman couldn't kill her in the middle of the marketplace, though.

"Chief." He raised an eyebrow to her in greeting. "I need some help. I'm looking for someone that could do surgery, but is also a technician. Does anyone in Rivet City meet that description?"

Harkness gave a thoughtful hum. "That sounds like Pinkerton. He used to serve on the city council, but he left to go live in the bow of the ship." He turned a surprisingly stern gaze on her. "Don't tell anyone I said that, though. The kids have been trying to convince the caravans that his ghost lives there."

She put her hands up placatingly. "Of course. This stays between us. Thanks for telling me, though." He gave her a friendly nod and turned back to continue surveying the area.

Jennifer made her way to the bridge entrance, quickly. The guard agreed to watch Dogmeat for a little bit, and with that she was running across the bridge. Down the stairs, around the corner, and activate the stealth boy. Jennifer tried to walk mostly across rocks so as not to leave footprints in the dirt that could be followed.

A path led to a door in the sunken half of the bow. The door was electronically locked and she cursed. It took a little bit of rewiring, but eventually the door creaked open and stale water flowed over her boots. "Ugh."

The hallway had a few nests of those weird mutated crabs- she should really ask someone what those were called - and a few traps that had already been set off by the water. Another locked door, and then she finally encountered some kind of laboratory.

With a final _beep_, her stealth boy ran out of power. From the second floor, she could see an old man leaning over a table. He waved her down without looking up. "Yes, yes. Come down. I know you're up there; I heard the door open." She descended the stairs and he turned assessing eyes to her. "A vaultie, hm? Haven't met one of you in years. Most don't make it this far."

Jennifer nodded to acknowledge his statement. "I'm here about the android. Who is he?"

Pinkerton got the unnerving, focused look her dad always had in his eyes when he went to go work on 'side projects'. "Ah, A3-21. My favorite project yet, so far. Such advanced technology. Such a challenge!" He rubbed his hands together. "The android wanted a new face and memories. So I gave them to it. Here, it recorded a holotape before I gave it new memories."

She took the holotape and put it in her Pip-Boy. "So, did you completely erase his memories?"

Pinkerton gave her a knowing look. "I did not. I merely put them behind a firewall. They could be activated again, with the right passphrase." A moment of silence. "Activate factory recall seven-zero-nine-seven-one."

Jennifer nodded. "Thank you for the information, Doctor Pinkerton." With that, she was back out the door.

* * *

Dogmeat followed her back into the marketplace. Jennifer's gaze landed on Harkness, and she sped towards him. A unfamiliar dark skinned woman across the room turned at her entrance and tried to intercept her. Not before Jennifer reached Harkness.

"Activate factory recall seven-zero-nine-seven-one.

Harkness froze completely, a blank look in his eyes. A moment later, they widened fractionally. "Why would you do that?"

The dark skinned woman stopped several feet away with a frustrated look on her face and clenched hands.

Jennifer met his gaze firmly. "You can't run away from your past and you can't live a lie. You'll never age, so what would you have believed in a hundred years? What was your plan?"

Harkness parted his lips but didn't speak. He inhaled slowly. "Is Zimmer gone?"

A firm nod. "Zimmer thinks you're dead."

He exhaled just as slowly. "Good. And I think...you may have a point."

Jennifer briefly touched his arm. "You'll be okay." She met the woman's eyes. "Next time you put a knife to my throat, you had better kill me."

Her long day wasn't over. She still had Doctor Li to talk to.


	12. Chapter 12

The dark-skinned woman - Victoria Watts was her name - roughly pulled her into a dark corner to demand an explanation. Jennifer had given her one, however reluctantly, to get the woman off her back. Watts didn't seem very satisfied, but she had explained the Railroad: a group based out of Boston, Massachusetts that was dedicated to helping and protecting androids that were manufactured by some shadow-y group called the Institute. It all sounded very interesting to Jennifer, but she didn't have the time to offer them any help. She parted from Watts with a lukewarm farewell; she wasn't entirely sure if she had made an enemy of the woman or not.

Jennifer and Dogmeat made the now-familiar descent to the laboratory. As she entered the large, well-lit room, she noticed that there was another doctor that had not been present before. Her heart lurched, and Jennifer intently studied the other woman from her vantage point at the top of the stairs.

All the other doctors and lab technicians fluttered around her like the pre-war bees she had seen in holovids, back in the Vault. The older woman exuded an air of confidence and authority, and the lines around her mouth and eyes suggested she was either near fifty, or just under constant stress; the scatterings of grey hairs at her temples didn't give a clear indication which was more accurate.

Jennifer began to descend the stairs, and the noise her boots made on the metal caused the woman to briefly glance over in her direction. Half a second later, she turned back around fully, a shocked expression plastered across her features. "James?"_ I don't look that much like him, dammit!_ The older woman was already shaking her head, though. "No, of course not, I apologize. It's just the vault suit, and your face…" She gave one more firm shake of her head, and as suddenly as it disappeared, the iron resolve settled back onto her features. She held out a hand to shake, already introducing herself. "I'm Doctor Madison Li; the head scientist here at Rivet City."

Jennifer returned the strong handshake. "Jennifer Williams, but I'm sure that's something you already know. I'm looking for my dad, and I heard he passed through here to see you. Could you tell me more about that?"

Madison snorted and redirected her attention back to her clipboard. The action sourly reminded Jennifer of her father, and she felt the beginnings of a frown at the corner of her mouth. "James came through here, alright, quick as a radstorm." _A what?_ Madison flipped the first page over the back of her clipboard and scanned the second. "He tried to persuade me to start working on Project Purity again. He was convinced that he had the solution to the power problem, determined to fix the machines. I told him I wasn't going back, and he left." Madison gazed back up at Jennifer. "Does that about answer everything?"

Jennifer gave a little hum as she processed this new information. "No. What exactly is Project Purity? Is that why Dad left the Vault?"

Madison coolly raised an eyebrow. "Ah, so he didn't tell you what he was doing when he left? Practically vanished overnight? That sounds about right."_ It sure does._ Something of her feelings must have shown on her face, because Madison smiled thinly at her, without any warmth.

"Project Purity is what our old team - your mother, father, and myself - worked on twenty years ago. The goal was to purify the tidal basin to provide the people here a source of clean water, and to refresh the ground water so, eventually, plants would be able to thrive again. Unfortunately, we ran into insurmountable technical difficulties that culminated in the end of the project. The Brotherhood - you're familiar with them? - originally provided security and resources until our research slowed to a stop. Catherine died, James left with you, and I started on new, valuable research here."

Jennifer nodded slowly. She was glad to have a bit of an explanation, finally; sitting around in the dark had gotten to be annoying. "So did he say exactly where he's going?"

Madison shrugged her shoulders. "He only talked about a G.E.C.K being the solution, but those aren't real." Jennifer had no idea what that term meant, but she wasn't about to ask for an explanation. She got the feeling Madison Li already didn't have a high opinion of her. "You could check for clues at the Jefferson Memorial."

"Thank you, Doctor Li. I appreciate how helpful you've been." Not only did the woman give her answers, but she didn't ask Jennifer for anything in return. What a refreshing change of pace.

Madison Li nodded her acknowledgement and turned back to her test tubes and microscopes. "Good luck. You'll need it."

* * *

It turns out she really, really did need the luck. The Jefferson Memorial was crawling with supermutants, and any place that housed the mutants was guaranteed to be a new kind of horrible.

The inside of the building was as decrepit as any other old-world building she'd been in yet. Years of water leaking through the roof had left dark trails down the walls, pooling where the floor met the wall. Cracked, yellow tile covered the concrete ground and the smell of rot suffused the air. In several of the rooms, huge bags of human limbs and organs hung from the

ceiling and dripped blood through the burlap into pools on the floor.

There were no working lights, so Jennifer only had her Pip-Boy light to see by. When she had to fire her laser rifle and run in fights, the light moved with her arm dramatically and heavily disoriented her.

Dogmeat lunged forward and latched his teeth into the leather flesh of a mutant. The thing screamed and lashed wildly in an effort to dislodge her dog. Jennifer aimed carefully and shot the thing under the chin, directly in the throat. It let out a grunt as it died and fell to the ground. Moving forward, she turned the corner and encountered two more of the monsters. The fighting was relentless; the supermutants a never-ending stream of yelling and terror.

Jennifer hacked into one of the terminals and opened one of the solid, metal doors that were so common in these government buildings. There, on the desk, was where she found the first one.

Her father had left notes throughout the Memorial. Older ones, that he had obviously left behind, and newer ones that told her where to go. She ran the tapes through her Pip-Boy and couldn't stop listening, even as she fought her way through the horde of supermutants.

Crack. _The Garden of Eden Creation Kit._ Flash._ My work on Project Purity never really stopped. _Hiss. _The very paragon of failure and false promises._ Sizzle. _I can't let this die. Not again, not like this._

Jennifer finally, mercifully, stumbled out the other side of the Memorial. The sun burned her eyes, even as it fell beyond the horizon in a spectacular fade of red and orange. Dogmeat pressed his familiar weight against her leg. She knew where she had to go. Vault 112.


	13. Chapter 13

The wind blew her hair back from her face, and Jennifer breathed deeply. She and Dogmeat had just exited from one of the subway tunnels, and they were glad to be out. The things were dark, dank, and full of feral ghouls, and it smelled like it too.

She jumped as her Pip-Boy let out an unexpected _beep!_ Curious, she brought it towards her face to investigate. The Pip-Boy had received a signal from an encoded source, and it crackled as it began to play.

_This is Defender Morrill, any Outcasts listening on this frequency report to sector 7-B, Bailey's Crossroads. This is a high-priority message, backup is needed at our location. Any personnel listening on this frequency please report at once._

Jennifer felt dread rise within her. She needed to go find her dad, but these people said they needed backup at once. She let out a grumble as the internal fight waged in her mind. Her map showed that Bailey's Crossroads was only a few blocks away, and it was probably just supermutants they needed some help fighting.

Jennifer tried to share an exasperated look with Dogmeat, but he only wagged his tail happily when she looked at him. Closing the map function, she sighed and turned to the direction of Bailey's Crossroads. "Let's go, boy."

* * *

The Outcasts did not just need help fighting some supermutants. After the fight, the men in red power armor confronted her aggressively. They only let off their stupid holier-than-thou attitude when they realized she could help them with some neural interface problem by virtue of her Pip-Boy.

She slipped some bulky goggles over her eyes and laid back in the virtual reality pod. The hum of machines around her soothed her nerves, followed by the quiet murmuring of the scribes as they started the program. They had promised she could have some of the loot when she got out, but honestly these guys were probably going to murder her the first chance they got. _Ah, well._ Her vision went dark…

… And suddenly she was _freezing! _The wind bit through her combat armor directly to her skin underneath, and she brought her hands to her upper arms to offer some meager protection. The bright light of the sun reflected off some white substance all around her, and she realized with a jolt that it was snowing. She hadn't seen snow on the surface yet. The Capital Wasteland was too hot and dry for it.

She brought her gaze up from the powdery snow she was standing on and felt her jaw drop at the view. Simply put, it was the most gorgeous scenery she had encountered yet. She stood on a stone pathway carved into the side of a vast cavern, the bottom of which was covered in a grey mist. Around her, dark grey stone covered in more snow rose up around her like hulking titans. She dazedly realized that they were mountains. Huge mountains, rising into the sky like jagged teeth.

A sudden voice called out behind her and she turned quickly to follow it. "That was a nasty fall you took! Thought you weren't gonna make it when your chute bunched up like that." The man looked like he had stepped right off a pre-war movie poster. Dark stubble covered a chiseled jawline and bright green eyes peered at her. "Here, you dropped these." He handed her an ammo bandolier and an American-style assault rifle. After a moment of hesitation, she swung the bandolier over her head so that it hung across the front of her white combat armor.

"We'll still meet at the rendezvous point as planned so we can blow those artillery guns to hell. Be careful, the Reds up here don't take prisoners." And with that ominous statement, the man walked over to the sheer cliff. Pulling out some kind of gear, he began to scale the side of the mountain.

Jennifer breathed out in a cloud of white mist. "Well, fuck."

* * *

The body faded away in a cluster of blue pixels. Jennifer wiped the fake blood off her knife and continued up the rocky path that led into a hallway of metal. She was supposed to rendezvous with that soldier somewhere near here. With a sudden screech of metal hitting metal, a grate on the ceiling flew open. Silently, a limp body dropped from the vent, but fizzled away before it reached the floor. The man from earlier silently dropped down a moment later.

He let out a short bark of a laugh. "Goddamn this place is swarming with Reds! Almost bought it out on the cliffs earlier." He grinned at her in a friendly manner. "Who knew they could be so handy with a sniper rifle?"

She raised a haughty eyebrow at him. "I don't know what you're talking about. I didn't have any problems getting up here." Jennifer must be getting desperately lonely if she was having fun snarking with a computer program.

The man rolled his eyes at her. "We get it! Mister Fantastic didn't have any trouble." Interesting, he must only be programmed to respond to her as if she was a fellow male soldier. Although that does make sense, considering the pre-war social expectations of men and women. Not many women would have joined the army, and none of them would have had a combat role. He jabbed a thumb behind him at the doors leading outside. "We clear to blow the hell out of this place or what?"

With a nod, she walked over to the doors and pushed them open.

Jennifer's ears were still ringing from the explosions. After she'd blown the artillery guns to hell and back, she was immediately teleported to some kind of forward camp and put in charge of a "suicide squad". Now, for whatever reason, she had to wait for them to actually show up.

The soldier from earlier - Sergeant Benjamin Montgomery - was going to be a part of her team. The two of them had to go to different contested points and take down this weird pulse field. Although, from what she'd read about the Battle of Anchorage in the Vault, none of this seemed very accurate. She was pretty sure vertibirds weren't in functional use until _after_ the liberation of Anchorage.

Her introspection was interrupted by the appearance of Montgomery. He sat next to her on the bench and reclined on his elbow, propped up by the table. "Our team should be here soon, sir, they just have to get their supplies from the quartermaster." She wanted to roll her eyes at all the 'sir'-ing and saluting she'd been having to deal with after her 'field promotion'. He slid a red packet out of his pocket and offered it to her. "Want one?"

Jennifer inspected the cigarette pack held out to her. She's a doctor, so she knows all the health risks involved with smoking, but this was a simulation. _It's not like anything bad could happen. _She had always wondered what smoking was like…

She took a cigarette out of the pack and held it between her lips. Montgomery lit it with a flick of a lighter. The little bit of light danced off his hand as he lit his own. The taste was unbelievably strong and bitter; she coughed after the first exhale. After a few drags, she stopped noticing the flavor and focused on the dryness of her mouth and the heat from the cigarette. She also started feeling light-headed.

Montgomery startled her by pointing to his watch. "Sir, it's time to go." The two walked through the entrance. She flicked the butt of the cigarette onto the ground outside the tent and crushed it with her heel. A group of men were sitting in the back of a military truck. Montgomery grinned at her. "Let's kick some Commie ass… sir."

* * *

Jennifer watched the doors of the Chinese military base get blown off their hinges with a small sense of satisfaction. Soon she would be free from this frozen hell and back to the warm, wonderful wasteland. The snow and cold had lost their glamour after about an hour. She's just glad she's not stuck somewhere further north in the real world; she doesn't even want to think about living in a nuclear winter.

She and Montgomery crossed the pulse field at a run, and entered the battle. Montgomery fell onto one knee and opened fire at one of the Chinese soldiers. She stood behind him upright and fired over his head at another. This was a strategy they had developed over the course of the simulation and it seemed to be effective. The two of them split off onto different sides of the battlefield once the Chinese soldiers in front of them were dead.

She brought her assault rifle up to bear and took down another two. They fizzled away, leaving only small pools of blood that steamed in the air. She heard an explosion off to her right; probably Montgomery and another of his grenades. His A.I really liked to use those for some reason…

Suddenly, there was a man in front of her that looked different than the other soldiers. He had stars on the shoulders of his uniform, similar to General Chase. She realized that this was the man she'd have to kill for the simulation to be over.

The general stabbed the man kneeling on the ground in front of him with brutal efficiency. He pointed at her with his sword. "Your forces will not bear the might of the Chinese army!" God, he sounded like a bad pre-war holovid.

Jennifer reloaded her gun and fired at him. "I'm going to kill you SO MUCH." He moved with impossible speed and deflected her bullets with his sword. In the blink of an eye, he was in front of her and slicing his sword down. She grabbed the stock and the butt of her gun and held it over her head to catch the blade. The sword sliced halfway into the wood and stuck when he tried to pull it out.

She threw the rifle away with all her might, and it took the general's sword with it. She pulled the knife from her belt and slashed it in front of her. He jumped back and held his fists out in front of him in a classic combat stance. The two circled each other for a moment, feinting forwards to test the other and watch them flinch. Jennifer soon tired of this dance and raced forward with the hope of catching him by surprise.

He dodged to her left and struck her in the side of the head. She turned her body to follow and lashed out with her knife. Blood spurted on the outside of his forearm, but he didn't seem to notice. He reached out with his uninjured arm and tried to grasp the weapon. She pulled it back and stepped into his space then grasped his neck with all her might. The knife pierced the flesh of his stomach with a quiet _schlick_. She stabbed him over and over until he stopped moving.

She let the body fall to the ground and watched drops of blood slide off her knife and land in the snow. A moment later, her muscles locked up and she couldn't move anything but her head. She looked up and General Chase approached her. "That'll do, soldier. Stand down." He indicated the body behind her. "That'll complete this portion of your training. Before you get out, you'll be instructed in the proper use of power armor. Then you'll report to your superior officer for training and your next assignment. Dismissed!"

The world around her disappeared in a flash of blue pixels.

Jennifer opened her eyes to complete darkness. She felt the virtual reality goggles pressing into her face, and the wires that hooked her up to the scribes' vital monitoring system. She weakly pulled at the goggles, but her hands didn't want to cooperate. She had just removed them as the pod began to open around her with a_ hiss_.

A profound feeling of confusion passed over her as she realized that she was completely alone in the server room. With a jerk, she disconnected the wires reading her vital signs. Her legs still seemed to be asleep, but she could feel them coming back with a tingling vengeance. She rubbed them to try and help the circulation. After another minute of this, she seemed to be well enough to stand.

The door leading into the hallway of the compound was open, and she could hear voices echoing down to her. None of them sounded happy. She leaned around the corner to watch the leader she had spoken with earlier face off against one of his troops. They were standing nose to nose and yelling loud enough, now, that she could clearly hear what they were saying.

"I'll see you in _hell_, traitor!" The leader pushed his index finger towards the face of his subordinate.

The other man backed up and lifted his minigun. "Not if I see you first!" The whirring of the gun started and gunfire broke out. She hurried over to where Dogmeat was growling next to her bag. She grabbed a few of her homemade grenades and a lighter. By now, the sound of stomping footsteps had replaced the fighting. "Let's get that vault girl!"

_Nope nope nope! _Jennifer lit the fuses on the three grenades and tossed them out into the narrow hallway. Frightened exclamations followed the grenades and she slammed the button to close the door. She grabbed her laser rifle and pushed a metal table on its side. Mugs shattered on the ground and pencils went rolling. Propping her laser rifle on the side of her makeshift cover, she waited.

Eventually, the metal door slid down. A second later, one Outcast soldier came barreling into the room firing a shotgun. Jennifer fired her rifle into the vulnerable join of the arm pit where the occupant was least protected. The heat of the metal melted the vulnerable flesh and the Outcast member screamed. He dropped his rifle and grabbed his arm, allowing her the opportunity to fire into another weak spot: the neck. A few shots later and he stopped moving.

Jennifer walked out of the simulation room and into the carnage of the hallway. Several suits of power armor lay on the ground, unmoving. Her grenades had melted parts of the wall and floor in addition to the metal suits. She quickly walked past them to a set of double metal doors. Accessing the terminal, the set of doors opened to the armory.

Inside was a veritable gold mine of weapons and armor. The shining jewel was obviously meant to be the untouched set of power armor that stood in the middle, but she was more interested in the Chinese stealth suit. It came with a set of instructions in English - _thank God_ \- and she giddily went to change into her regular gear and grab her bag.

On the way back, she noticed a pack of cigarettes sitting on a tech console. Hesitating for a moment, she stuffed them into the pocket of her Vault suit and tried not to think about it.

* * *

A/N: I have never smoked nor do I endorse it. Then again, I don't endorse anything Jennifer has done/will do - I'm just here to tell a story.


	14. Chapter 14

The shadow of Megaton rose up before her, the dark metal of the city contrasted by the plain greys and browns of the dusty ground below it. A low hum reverberated through the air around her, courtesy of the generators that kept the city alight, accompanied by the buzzing of hundreds of people living their lives in the relatively small confines of the city. A warm glow shone from the city and into the night sky, and Jennifer took an appreciative glance at the peaceful scenery.

The new suit of power armor gave her the odd, contrasting feeling of being both well-protected and extremely vulnerable; Jennifer felt significantly more exposed than when she just wore her normal gear. Her movements felt odd and clunky, almost as if she were moving through heavy air, or maybe water. Her boots crunched through the gravel, and Dogmeat gave Deputy Weld a curious sniff before following her through the hulking doors of the city.

* * *

Jennifer had never held any strong feelings about the location of her house before. Releasing the hydraulic clasps of the armor with a_ hiss_, she stepped out of the walking armory and abandoned it in the corner of her house, with a newfound appreciation of her home's relative closeness to the entrance of the city. She couldn't imagine having to walk through a crowd of people in that armor.

She puttered around the first story of her house, putting the random things she had collected away and re-sorting and sanitizing her medical kit. A quick check showed that the time wasn't _too _late, so she made her way out the front door, passing by Dogmeat, who had claimed the sofa as his napping spot - his legs splayed wildly in the air. He gave a rumbling snore as she locked the door behind her.

Jennifer unzipped the top half of her Vault suit, down to the the belt wrapped around her waist, and freed her arms from the long sleeves, tying them together and letting them fall across her belt, leaving her just in her white undershirt. A cool breeze ruffled her hair and smoothed across the back of her neck, and she pushed open the door to Moriarty's Saloon.

Navigating her way through the crowd was incredibly annoying, but the smile on Gob's face when their eyes met made the effort worth it. He was just so friendly that she couldn't help but be glad to see him, and he really didn't deserve all the rude behavior the people here showed him. He laid the rag he was using to clean a glass over his shoulder and leaned towards her as she reached the bar.

"Long time no see, stranger. The radio tells me you've been busy." She rolled her eyes dramatically and laughed at him in return.

"I'm not really sure you should believe everything that Three Dog says, but yeah, a lot's happened since I saw you last, I guess." Her mouth pulled down a bit in thought, but she resisted the urge to frown outright. No need to rain on the parade already.

He gestured behind him to the shelves of liquor filling the bar space. "Want something to drink?"

She eyed the various bottles warily. Jennifer wasn't completely sure that Moriarty didn't supplement the drinks with paint thinner, but Gob probably wouldn't ask if it would kill her… "Do you have anything sweet?"

He reached under the counter to grab a Nuka-Cola and lifted it for her inspection. "I can mix a bit of vodka in with this and you'd barely know the difference." She wondered what the point was, then, if you couldn't even taste it, but she nodded her assent.

He quickly poured the soda into a glass and mixed a shot of vodka into the drink. He swiftly collected her caps. "I've got to, you know-" he made a vague gesture with a hand "-but I'll talk to you later. Enjoy!"

She smiled back at him and wandered over to a free seat near the door. It gave her a good view of the first floor - not that there was much going on. Jennifer sipped slowly at her drink and grudgingly admitted that she could see the appeal to alcohol, now. It wasn't like she was feeling anything, but the vodka added a subtle flavor to the sugary-sweet soda. _Almost like cherry, maybe?_ She contemplated getting another drink, but her eyes locked on Moriarty himself behind the bar.

His stance was aggressive, arms gesticulating wildly and voice rising, as he crowded Gob's personal space. The ghoul's shoulders were a steel line of tension, and he hung his head down and away from Moriarty. She couldn't tell what the man was shouting over the din of the bar, and a quick sweep of the room showed that none of the other patrons were even bothering to take note of the scene. The crack of shattered glass brought her gaze back to the two figures, and Gob clutched the side of his face, another hand steadying himself on the counter. She felt anger rising in her chest, settling like a ball of white-hot fury.

She watched as Moriarty made his way out of the bar, not even sparing her a glance. Jennifer fixed her gaze on the glass in her hand, waiting.

A few minutes later, she exited the bar.

* * *

With Megaton's walls, Jennifer couldn't exactly see the sun rising, but the sky mixed in a colorful array of red and orange. By the time she reached the door to Moira's shop, her cigarette had burned down to a stub. She flicked the end away and released her last breath in a slow exhale. The smoke curled up into the air and away.

It only took a single knock for the deadbolt to turn and Moira's face to appear in the doorway. Her eyes lit up and she smiled widely. Jennifer felt herself smiling back; Moira's genuine good cheer was infectious. "Oh, hey! When did you get here, Jennifer?" Moira stepped back from the doorway and opened the door wide. With a gesture of invitation, Jennifer stepped into the familiar shop with Dogmeat on her heels.

From the looks of it, nothing had really changed in the few weeks she was gone. The shelves behind the register were filled with an assortment of merchandise, and the counter was covered in the innards of a terminal that Moira had gutted for parts. Jennifer followed Moira into the back room, where a small table was covered in loose papers and notebooks. "Take a seat! Tell me what's been going on." The other woman's mouth twisted in an amused smile. "At least, something I didn't hear off the radio."

Jennifer shook her head in feigned exasperation. "You know I have no control over that, right? I didn't ask to be radio famous."

Moira _tsked _her displeasure. "You did when you chose to help those people, and trust me, I'm not complaining about that. So-" she crossed her arms and leaned back in her chair "-did you find a lead on your dad?"

Jennifer can feel her mouth curl in displeasure. "Yeah, I did. That's actually why I came back through Megaton. Got here pretty late. And I was going to ask: do you want to give me the rest of chapter two for your book? I can work on any of it when I have some free time."

Moira's face lit up again in response. "Absolutely do I want to give you chapter two to work on! Look at these notes, and I'll give you the rundown."

Jennifer's attention was divided between copying the notes down on her Pip-Boy and listening to Moira's explanations of the tasks. She's so focused that she practically jumped into the air at the feeling of a finger tapping her shoulder. She turned around quickly to face her assailant. "I- uh- what?"

Charon stood there with two old, cracked mugs. A warm feeling washed over her at the sight of the bodyguard, and Dogmeat's tail thumped the ground in delight. Moira's voice drifts over her shoulder. "Thanks for the drinks, Charon. Mutfruit?" He gave a single nod in response. "Great choice! If you'll just set them down here?" She freed a spot on the table from the onslaught of the papers, and he gently placed the mugs before them.

Jennifer smiled up at the ghoul. "How do you like working with Moira, Charon?"

He gave a thoughtful hum in response. "I rather like keeping watch over the shop. Miss Brown is a far better employer than Ahzrukhal ever was." He nodded in Moira's direction. "I need to get back to my own tea, and keeping guard." He made a swift exit. Jennifer wondered if he was in a different part of the store - she didn't notice him when she came inside.

She curled her hands around the mug in front of her. Heat radiated from the ceramic, soothing her already, and steam curled gently from the dark purple liquid. She hadn't considered that there would be plants to make tea from out here. She let out an appreciative hum at the first sip. It tastes as good as it looks - a rich fruity flavor, but not overly sweet. The warmth travels down and settles pleasantly in her stomach.

Moira notices that she seems to have died and gone to drink heaven. "Like it?"

"Mmm . . ." Forming words was beyond her at the moment. Moira just laughed at her.

* * *

The two talked for a while longer. Jennifer explained how she hired Charon in the first place and why she felt uncomfortable making him fight for her. Moira just shrugged and said that she appreciated having the second set of hands around.

Jennifer went back to her house soon after and re-equipped her weapons and armor. She appreciated the familiar weight of the bag against her back, and the armor covering her chest. She was nearing the gate, ready to go back into the wasteland, when she was intercepted by Sheriff Lucas Simms. He raised a hand in her direction. "Hey, vault girl. I've got a couple of questions I'd like to ask you."

Jennifer smiled back at him. She knew what this was about. "Sure thing, Sheriff. What did you need?"

He looked right into her eyes, gaze piercing. "There's been an incident involving Colin Moriarty. He was found dead last night, neck snapped from a fall outside his saloon. I just needed to know if you knew anything about it."

She knew plenty about it. Jennifer gazed steadily back at him. "I saw him at the saloon last night, but he was definitely alive then. I can't remember anything out of the ordinary."

He looked at her for one more long second before his gaze relaxed. "Well, I thought it was worth asking, anyway. I've always thought those damn handrails were too short, and look where we are now." He brought a hand up to scratch his chin thoughtfully.

She raised an eyebrow at him. "Did you think there was foul play?"

He shrugged in return. "Not particularly. The primary suspects would be Gob or Nova, but they were both working until the bar closed early in the morning, and nobody saw them leave." Simms gave a nod of his head at her. "I just thought maybe you'd know something - problems have a way of getting solved when you're around." Well, that was certainly true in this situation as well. He just wasn't privy to that information.

He started to walk back in the direction he'd come from. "Be seeing you, vaultie."

* * *

She was following the road out of Megaton, because even the cracked asphalt roads are better than stomping through the dirt, when Dogmeat suddenly tensed beside her. He growled, low in his throat, ears pressed against his head. Jennifer tried to still herself, listening intently for any sounds. Instead, a strange smell floated on the wind. Almost like… something burning?

She turned in a slow circle and spotted a thick, black cloud on the horizon. It only seemed to be a few miles away, but a tide of dread swept through her. She knew that something bad had happened there. Just as the thought rose in her mind, she spotted a small figure running in the distance. She swung her laser rifle off her shoulder and went to meet them.

* * *

It was a child, because of course, what else could it be?

His name is Bryan Wilks, he told her in a rush of breath. Tears streamed down his face and cut tracks through the dirt and ash coating his face, and he asked her for help.

The smell of ozone wafted up from her laser rifle. Rage built in her chest with the fall of every chitinous body, as she fought her way to Bryan's house - to look for his _father,_ of all people. She hates the way the thought twists in her chest and burns her eyes. A solid kick brings the door to the ground in a _crash! _and she's inside the house, running. The smoke is cloying and thick and she can't keep her eyes from watering. Dogmeat howls from outside the house, and a piece of the roof falls in with a smash and scattering of sparks.

She finds the body in the back of the house. Blood congealed the wounds from ant pincers, and half of the man's face is burned away. Jennifer can't seem to stop coughing and her chest _burns _\- from smoke and anger. Someone _will _answer for this.

* * *

Bryan tells her that there was a scientist that had moved into town, months before. He was strange and reclusive, and didn't particularly like answering his questions, and he tells her where the scientist lived.

She finds the rusty shack on the perimeter of the town. The hinges squeal in protest as she shoves the door open, and light floods the room. A terminal hums in the corner of the dark room, monitor sending out a bright glow.

It doesn't take long to get into, and it takes even less time to find the entrance to the Metro tunnel.

* * *

Her bright Pip-Boy light throws strange looking shadows across the walls of the Metro. The end of her cigarette glows a faint red, and gray smoke trails off of it and out of the sides of her mouth. A metal door at the end of the tunnel swings open, and a man in a lab jacket begins stepping onto the stairs. _Bingo_.

She doesn't stop her purposeful march, and he looks up from his clipboard with a jerk of his head. "Oh! You startled me!" He peers at her though his thick-lensed glasses as she continues her steady approach.

"You're Doctor Lesko?" A burst of smoke leaves her mouth with the words. He makes some sort of words of assent, but she isn't really paying attention by then. She slings her laser rifle over her shoulder in a smooth movement and unholsters Amata's pistol. The tunnel loudly echoes the three shots that puncture his chest. Doctor Lesko stumbles back into the wall behind him and falls to the ground - leaving a long smear of blood on the cold concrete behind him.

She takes the butt of her cigarette and grinds the end on his shoulder and drops the burnt-out cigarette onto his lap. Jennifer and Dogmeat step over the body to find the ant queen.

* * *

The bandage rubs uncomfortably against the inside of her vault suit, and Jennifer irritably resists the urge to scratch at it. She had gotten burned in the last fight with the ant queen and her soldiers, and healing burns with Stimpaks was tricky business. She had to cut off the burned skin on her hip - which thankfully wasn't too large an area - so that the Stimpak could begin the process of regrowing the skin cells. It left her with a janky scar in the outline of a circle, smaller than the size of her palm.

Her boots echo off the metal of the hallway floor of Rivet City. Next to her, Bryan Wilks was practically vibrating with excitement. After she had killed the ant queen and left the Metro, Jennifer had found him hiding in one of those old preservation shelters. He'd told her about his Aunt Vera in Rivet City, and thus the two had spent a few days traveling on the road.

They stop outside the Weatherly Hotel entrance, and Jennifer sets a hand on Bryan's shoulder. He looks up at her, eyes wide with excitement. "Remember, not a peep until I call for you, alright?" He clasps his hands together and nodded quickly. With a pat on his shoulder, she steps into the hotel.

"Vera?" The woman in question turns around at the front desk and smiles. She didn't look to be too much older than Jennifer herself, somewhere in her mid-twenties.

"Vault girl! Good to see you again. I didn't think you be back so soon. Did you want to rent a room?" Jennifer shakes her head and lets out a sigh.

"No. I'm afraid I have some bad news." Vera's eyes widen in shock, and Jennifer continues before the other woman can get anything out. "Grayditch has burned down in an accident, and your brother didn't make it. I'm sorry." She really is, too.

Vera's hands fly up to cover her mouth, and she pales so sharply that Jennifer thinks she might pass out. "Oh God." She leans against the counter beside her. "Did...what about Bryan? Do you know anything?"

That was a good sign. Jennifer nods her assent. "He survived, and he's looking for a place to stay. He was wondering if you might be willing to take him in."

Vera nods immediately and quickly. She actually looks like Bryan did in the hall a moment ago. "Of course! I'd love to have him here."

"Great." Jennifer turns sightly to face the doorway. "Bryan, you can come in."

She'd barely finished the last word before he burst into the room, bag slapping against his back. Dogmeat trotted in at a more sedate pace, tail wagging.

Bryan threw his hands into the air and cried out in a loud voice. "Aunt Vera!" He ran around the counter to hug her and she leaned down to return it. Jennifer smiled widely at the happy reunion. She turned around to leave a moment later, but she'd only taken one step before a small body slammed into her leg.

"Wait!" Bryan's arms came around her waist in a hug. "You get one too! I'm so happy to be here!" Jennifer lowered herself to one knee to hug the boy back properly, and his arms became a vice around her neck.

She squeezed him back just as tight, hands on his old backpack, and his pointy chin on her shoulder. Tears burned in the corner of her eyes. "I'm happy too."

And she really was.

* * *

A/N: I headcanon that mutfruit is a citrus fruit, which is how nobody in the Capital Wasteland has scurvy.


	15. Chapter 15

A crumble of rocks fell to the ground far below as her foot slipped on the rocks beneath her. Jennifer's sharp intake of breath seemed loud in her helmet - maybe she just wasn't used to wearing it, yet. She froze on her step down, waiting. A long moment later, and she continued her descent.

The landscape surrounding her was a mixture of unflattering greys and browns, but then, so was the rest of the wasteland. The edges of the rocks were sharp and willing to cut if one were to look at them wrong. They stacked on top of each other to form a steep hill in the shape of a semicircle; the rocks tapered off into vicious points, leaving the tracks and factory below to look as if it were cupped in a many-fingered hand, topped with razor-sharp nails.

A few minutes later, and she finally reached the perch she had pinpointed on her Pip-Boy map. She slung her bag off her back and onto the ground next to her. Unzipping it, she retrieved the pieces to the sniper rifle Arkansas - the same one she had taken from the ghost sniper. That felt like such a long time ago, now, but it was probably only a few weeks before. A few practiced movements later, and she had an assembled rifle in her hands. With a sharp _click_, it was fully loaded.

She breathed in, held it, and breathed out, trying to imagine her anxieties floating out of her in a stream of smoke. Accessing her Pip-Boy, she looked at the interface that connected it to her new stealth suit. She hadn't had much time to experiment with its use, but the suit did come with an English-translated manual from the Outcast base, so she understood the basics. She had also seen it in action. How hard could it be? A few moments of fiddling later and a _whoosh _heralded her limbs disappearing from view.

Shifting so she kneeled, she brought her rifle up to bear. Looking through the scope verified the information that Three Dog had been spreading on his news station - Evergreen Mills did seem to have a bit of a raider infestation. Sudden movement brought her attention to…_is that a Behemoth? What the fuck!_

She felt her mouth contort into a grimace and didn't bother trying to stop it. Jennifer felt like she was constantly in a bad mood, ever since her best friend had woken her to the sound of sirens, telling her she needed to leave. Being forced into a literal wasteland would do that to you, she supposed. _Game face, girl. Get it together._ Shaking her head of the despondent thoughts, Jennifer surveyed the landscape below.

She wasn't exactly sure where Smith Casey's Garage was, and, consequently, where her father was hiding. She did know it was in the general vicinity of where she was now. Scouting the area had produced the viper's nest she was about to kick - as she was capable of acting, she now felt almost a sense of responsibility to end such a widespread threat to the locals.

Below her were a scattering of perhaps a dozen people. The man in her scope had been jeering in a crowd of his fellows. She watched him throw a bottle against the side of a train car, and then move towards what appeared to be a pen of sorts. The small crowd followed him, and a quick look showed people of all ages locked up, dirty, and cowering. She gritted her teeth against the sudden flow of white hot fury. These raiders were already going to die, but now it was going to be painful.

The man reached towards the gate with a key in his hand, and his brain splattered against the fence next to him. The group seemed to move in slow motion - standing there for a breath before scattering. She got off another shot at one, blowing a hole in his chest, before they found cover.

The raiders would try and lean out of cover in different directions, taking potshots towards what they guessed was her general direction. She finished off her magazine but only managed to take down one more. The other people outside of the factory were coming out now to try and kill their unknown assailant.

She slung her bag over her shoulder and dropped down from the shelf that she had originally staked and began moving across the face of the hill, trying to get an angle on the multitude of people now shooting at her. They were far enough away that the shooting itself wasn't particularly a problem, but she felt like something was about to change. Something on the air told her to move, now.

A moment later, a rocket screamed by her and exploded, destroying the shelf in a shower of dust and pointy rocks. _Okay! Motherfuckers! _She used the opportunity to slide further down the hill face, sending rocks careening in different directions. She hit a boulder feet first with a jolt and scrambled atop.

She had enough time to reload her rifle and paint three more people onto the ground - the first through her neck, sending an arc of blood into the air. The other two had a limb taken off each and bled out on the ground - one at the shoulder and one through the thigh. Jennifer watched them crawl towards cover before they stopped moving, leaving a bloody puddle in their wake._ I would hate to lose a limb._

She was already moving by the time the rocket came careening towards where she had been hiding. She ran towards covering that was becoming increasingly less good at keeping her alive and in one piece, and she felt apprehension start to rise in her throat. Maybe this whole 'yippee ki yay' thing wasn't the best plan ever, but she couldn't exactly ditch it now. She was just glad she had left Dogmeat in a shack, quite a ways away from this whole mess.

Her back hit the boulder, and she took a moment before leaning out and sending out the last two shots in her magazine. Only one found its mark, the other driving a hole into the corner of a train car. She cursed and dropped her rifle at her feet. She slung her bag off her back and watched it hit the ground with a sort of detached kind of fascination.

She unholstered the combat knife and silenced pistol she had stolen from Burke, that first day in Megaton, and finished her descent to the ground. Jennifer still had no idea where rocket launcher guy was supposed to be, and a moment later shrugged the worry off. She'd either get blown up, or her stealth armor would hide her for long enough.

She moved towards the closest train car in a sort of half crouch-half run. The raiders left outside were still firing potshots towards the cliffside, which provided her with enough cover to slip inside the end of the car.

The sun had already been fading when she began her assault, leaving the light outside to darken to dusk. The fading sun provided her with enough light to see a raider at the end of the train car, leaning out from behind one of the open doors. She holstered her pistol at her waist and sped up.

She reached a hand out and wrapped it around the woman's mouth, then dragged her knife across her throat in one smooth motion. Jennifer backed up so they wouldn't be seen in the darkness of the tunnel and lowered her body to the ground.

The woman wasn't quite dead yet. She reached a hand up to cover the heavily bleeding slice and looked at Jennifer with wide, fearful eyes. Half the woman's hair was shaved, and she looked rather young, and scared. She couldn't be older than Jennifer herself. The girl on the ground tried to say something - a squeak and bloody foam was all she could manage. Her eyes went glassy and her arm fell limp.

Jennifer breathed deeply. She felt, maybe, that those eyes and that bloody foam should have made her feel guiltier for what she was doing. Instead, she felt her heart ice over a little bit more. She straightened up and rolled her shoulders. She wasn't quite finished, yet.

* * *

The factory itself hadn't had many people inside. They all fell as easily as the others, distracted as they had been talking some nonsense about how the other raiders should keep all the ruckus outside down. Maybe rocket launcher guy was pretty free with how often he shot the weapon off.

The actual challenge came when she discovered a labyrinth cave system underneath the mill factory. It was full of people who were totally willing to slaughter her. The suit had provided an incredible advantage though. She'd argue that it was more useful than stealth boys, even if she had an easier time of being spotted while moving - twice wasn't too bad for the first time wearing it.

Only two situations were particularly strange. The first was when she had killed the people that had been frequenting what was called the Brothel in giant, glowing, neon letters hanging on a sign. She had released the people trapped _in cages_ who then attempted to attack her. So, in that case, the cages were probably a kink thing. Or maybe they were brainwashed. Nothing to do about it now, though. The second, and arguably stranger incident, was when some man had seen her and attempted to trade with her. He'd called for her to disable her stealth suit, so she had. More out of curiosity than anything, as all of the people she had seen thus far had met a grisly end by her knife, so she wasn't in much danger of being ambushed. He'd launched into some spiel about prices for ammunition.

Maybe he had just been a coward looking for a way out. Regardless, he was still dead at the bottom of a cave.

* * *

After clearing out the raiders and Behemoth - _thanks for making that easy, frag mines!_ \- and releasing the captives, it became clear that all of them needed some form of medical attention. Well, at least she was useful in that regard. _Yay for vault doctor training._ She was more glad to get out of the bright orange helmet that her suit used.

Jennifer frowned down at the little boy's leg she was inspecting. She'd had to reset the break for it to heal properly, but it still seemed off in some way. The best she could do was stitch the skin closed where the bone had broken through and apply a stimpak, then wrap it. She was worried it wouldn't heal properly, despite her best efforts.

The boy - Sam - was not quite _happily _munching on the last of Jennifer's Fancy Lad Snack Cakes, but he was light years better than he had been a few hours ago. The boy had muttered about going to Lamp City, or something, with a few of the other kids when Jennifer had asked about his plans now that he was free again, so she assumed the boy had everything on lockdown. Giving the bandage one last critical look, she smiled down at him. "Well, you're good to go. Just try and get to where you're going quick, okay? With the stimpak, your leg should be safe to walk on if you're careful. If you feel weird, go to a doctor. Try to be safe."

Sam looked up at her with red rimmed eyes and slowly smiled, showing off a set of tiny baby teeth. Jennifer felt her heart clench in response. The boy jumped up and scampered over to the other children, shoving the last of his snack cake in his mouth as he did so. Jennifer shook her head and stood, shaking the cramps out of her legs from having been crouched for so long.

She knew some of the people - families, mostly - were going to try and go to Megaton or where they came from. Others were going to try and start a new life in Evergreen Mills, as there were plenty of resources leftover from the raiders to trade to the caravans and equip themselves with. She had no idea what they were planning to do with the Behemoth's body, though.

As she looked around at the mild chaos, Jennifer suddenly thought of the Brotherhood of Steel, of all people. Especially that striking woman, Sarah Lyons. When they'd talked in Galaxy News Radio, Sarah had seemed _so_ convinced that the Brotherhood was a force of good in the wasteland. She'd had some sort of inner conviction that made it easy to believe her. Three Dog, and the people in Rivet City, seemed to agree that the Brotherhood had been good for them.

She wondered what it would be like, if they could expand, spread their influence and protection further. Maybe it would keep people, like those running around her, from being victimized and falling prey to those who were more vicious, more willing to hurt others. Maybe the wasteland could begin to be something new, something better. People fighting for a cause, together, cooperating towards the greater good.

Jennifer shook her head at the absurd fantasy. None of that was even close to being real.

Not yet, at least.


	16. Chapter 16

CONTENT WARNING: For what some may consider torture.

* * *

Jennifer squeezed the grip of Amata's pistol and peered into the dim light of the mechanic shop. Dust motes danced in the air before her. The only light that filtered into the workshop came falling through the windows at the far end of the room at the top of the wall. Broken glass littered the ground below it, and everything was covered in a fine, undisturbed layer of dust and grit. The room was filled with automobiles and adjacent paraphernalia in various states of decay. The sharp scent of rusted iron filled her senses and she crinkled her nose in response.

Smoke lazily drifted up from the cigarette clamped between her lips. She exhaled a stream of it and watched it drift towards the ceiling. It made her lungs burn, but the rest of her always seemed to be anyways, so she figured it didn't make much of a difference. Anger always seemed to be simmering just beneath her skin, now.

Dogmeat sniffed the radroach at her feet and wagged his tail. It had been one of the only 'threats' in the building, other than the molerats that had ambushed her at the entrance, if one could call them as such. The useless dog had seemed perfectly content to let her practically stomp the thing to death after rounding the counter heading into the main workshop.

She stepped forward to investigate a panel on the wall with a lever on the side. The line of wires leading from the box didn't actually seem to be connected to anything useful, but the seam running through the ground on the floor next to it was the only lead she had in getting anywhere. Shrugging, she reached up with her free hand and pulled the lever. She definitely _did not _jump and yelp in response to the sudden screeching movement of the secret entrance.

She turned her head around and looked at Dogmeat, who cocked his head to the side. He was giving her a particularly judgemental look in response to the cowardice that nobody could prove just happened. She sighed. _So much for man's best friend._ She crushed her cigarette with her boot as she headed down the stairs.

* * *

Her Pip-Boy _hissed _as she unlocked the biometric seals that clamped the thing securely to her arm. Jennifer set the device on the ground next to her bag that was leaned against the side of her chosen simulation pod. She zipped out of her Vault 101 jumpsuit and into the Vault 112 clothes. A sense of dread had settled on her chest like a pile of rocks, slowly squeezing the air out of her, as she had stepped past the Robobrain and walked down the hall and into the atrium. Pods, similar to the one was she used to gain access to Operation: Anchorage, were stationed in a circle around a tall mainframe in the middle. Wires and pipes connected all of the devices to the mainframe and snaked underneath the floor. To top off the bad holodisk horror movie vibe, the air hummed with a sort of mechanical whirr and the room filled with a blue glow emitted from the mainframe, the only source of light.

While all of that was concerning, the actually alarming thing was the presumed residents of the Vault. They were all sealed inside of the simulation pods and they all looked . . . _wrong._ Their faces were sunken and everyone seemed to have unusual lines in their faces, like the skin had tried to age naturally, but something was keeping it young against the orderly march of time. Their eyes moved behind their eyelids like someone dreaming deeply, but it was a slow crawl in comparison to the usual quick flicker. She had shuddered just watching them. All of the Vault residents had shaved heads and an unusual amount of wires and gadgets hooked up to them. In addition to the fact that the Robobrain at the entrance had told her she was two-hundred years late, and, well, none of this seemed to be adding up to a nice number.

The Vault suit was uncomfortable, too. Where hers was clearly made to last for a number of years and still be comfortable -_ live in the Vault, die in the Vault, after all _\- this one seemed unusually bulky and had strange holes in the arms and back. Probably so she could be hooked up like the rest of the Vault residents.

She sighed her protest to the situation loudly to the apathetic Robobrains that were wheeling around the pods. They didn't seem to care. Climbing into the pod, she gave a friendly little wave to Dogmeat, whose concern for the situation seemed to be growing by the minute. As the top of the pod closed in on her, he jumped up on his hind legs and placed his front paws on the glass, and gave a loud bark. Jennifer smiled faintly at him. "Good boy."

* * *

Where she had suddenly seemed to just appear in the Anchorage simulation, this one filled her vision with a bright light that took several long moments to fade. Jennifer blinked to clear her vision when she could finally see. Then blinked again, harder. Then one last time, for good measure.

Her first mildly coherent thought stretched along the lines of: _Almighty God have mercy, I've lost my fucking vision_. Then she realized that probably wasn't it, but rather someone was trying very hard to maintain an aesthetic.

She seemed to have been transported into another, different holodisk, but instead of sci-fi, it was some sort of wholesome family sitcom. Or maybe a bit of American government propaganda film. She stood on the sidewalk around the edge of an actual, honest to God, cul-de-sac. She didn't think those were real things. Tiny little houses with nicely maintained yards that sported precisely inch-and-a-half tall grass stared back at her. Menacingly. A perpetually cheery tune seemed to be playing in the background, but the source was unidentifiable. It seemed to be coming from everywhere and nowhere, all at once, and when she tried to follow it with her ears, her head started to ache. The worst part though was that her vision had faded into black and white.

She near about had a mental breakdown when she realized that she had been transported into the body of a ten-year-old. Not even her body at age ten! Just some random ass child. She was not afraid to strangle the person in charge of this decision with her grubby child hands if it came down to it. _Better watch out, Braun, or whatever the fuck your name is._

Jennifer stepped off the sidewalk and made her way towards the playground in the middle of the neighborhood. Some sort of small compulsion pushed her that direction. Cresting the small hill, her eyes landed on a dog pacing next to a young girl. They made eye contact across the grass. Jennifer felt goosebumps raise her skin.

"Oh! Someone new to play with! I haven't had anyone _fun_ around in ages." There was something to her voice. Something crawling and unpleasant.

"Hello. I'm looking for my father. Has he been through her-?" The other girl cut her off before she could finish her question.

"Now that isn't very nice! You haven't even introduced yourself yet." At Jennifer's protesting silence, the girl raised an eyebrow. "Well? Go on."

The same compulsion that made her climb the hill forced an answer out from between grit teeth. "Jennifer. Pleased . . . to meet . . . you."

The girl laughed delightedly and clapped her hands together. "Now, was that so hard?" _Yes, actually._ "My name is Betty. Welcome to Tranquility Lane! Would you like to play a game?"

The same force wanted to compel her to nod her submissive agreement. With great effort and a shrinking willpower, she ground out what she wanted. "I'm looking for . . . my father . . ."

Betty fixed her gaze on Jennifer. She felt nausea climb her throat in response to the inhuman eyes. "Yes. I heard you before. Maybe if you play my game, I can help you with that. Wouldn't that be nice?"

The last of Jennifer's will to resist drifted away like smoke in the breeze. She almost seemed to be floating out of her body and felt herself nod in response to Betty without any input from her brain. Betty grinned in response. Wide, wide, too wide, and with too many teeth. "Great! It's simple. Go make Timmy Neusbaum cry." Jennifer nodded again and off she went.

She thought, in a detached sort of way, that finding the boy would be harder than it actually was. Her searching gaze honed in on a boy with a lemonade stand and she _knew _that was her target. The game really hadn't been hard at all, honestly. Jennifer marched up to the boy's stand and swiped the glass cups off the wood board and onto the ground. They shattered in a spectacular fashion, throwing gleaming shards of glass across the ground and arcing into the air.

Timmy let out some cry of protest. The actual words never registered in her brain. She reached across the counter and grabbed a fistfull of his shirt in her hand. He screamed when she pulled him across the counter and onto the ground. Her other hand lifted in a fist and she brought it down with a sharp _crack _across his face. His nose spurt a stream of blood and he gasped in pain. She watched her fist raise, and fall, and raise, and fall. A choking compulsion wrapped her chest in chains, and every time she tried to stop hitting him, that same feeling brought her hand down with more force. Tighter and tighter until she couldn't breathe. Jennifer felt an animalistic scream twisting and crawling up her throat.

Eventually, she froze. Dropped her hand back down to her side. Stood. Marched over to Betty. She heard Timmy sobbing weakly behind her. Her hand was slick with blood.

Betty's smile widened further. "Yay! I knew you could do it! What an unexpectedly vicious approach." She nodded her head towards Timmy. Whatever was left of him and his face. "For winning, you get to ask one question and receive an honest answer."

The chains around her chest loosened and she felt the tiniest bit of control come back to her. Distantly, she heard screaming and wondered at who could be making such a pained sound. Regardless, she had her priorities. The top one consisted of murdering the girl in front of her.

She's not sure when she reached her hands out to rip out Betty's throat, but it was fast enough that it actually seemed to startle the other girl. Not quite fast enough, but she had that small satisfaction, at least. Jennifer's body froze rigidly and she distantly noted that whoever had been screaming like a savage animal had finally stopped.

Betty eyed her frozen form and _tsked_ in obvious disapproval. "Well, that was unexpected. And so ungrateful!" She circled her form and shook her head. "I can't let this behavior go unpunished."

Jennifer didn't know what she expected, honestly.

It started down in her feet. A slight feeling, not unlike static electricity dancing off her skin. With growing apprehension, she felt it crawling up her legs. The further up it went, the more intense the pain got. She heard the crackling, growing louder, until it overpowered everything and it was the only thing in the world. The sound and the_ pain pain pain pain someone help kill me kill me pleasepleasepleaseplease_. It moved up over her torso and she felt a scream lodge in her throat but she couldn't move and _oh God it hurt_. It reached the top of her head and she felt slick blood sliding down her face. It lasted an eternity and then some.

Then it was over.

Her limbs gave out. She felt her head hit the ground. Someone was screaming again.

* * *

She couldn't refocus her vision. She stared up at the sky, trying to piece herself back together. At least the blood wasn't pouring out of her nose anymore. And then, Jennifer knew she had actually gone insane. She saw Amata leaning down over her, at the edge of her sight. She reached a hand out and wiped some blood off of her lower lip. The red was startling against her skin, painted in black and white.

A warm feeling threaded through her chest. She hadn't wanted to think about Amata too much since leaving the Vault, because there was no way to get back to her, despite what she promised as she left. Whenever she spared a thought to her, it felt like someone was carving her heart out of her chest. So it was nice, to just see her there, without any of the pain she usually felt.

Then her vision snapped into focus. It was Betty leaned over her, licking the blood off her finger.

Jennifer rolled over and started to dry heave. She was shaking too much to support herself with her arms.

Betty laughed above her. She gave a friendly pat to the top of her head. "When you're finished there, I want you to play another game. The Rockwells have a seemingly happy marriage. Put an end to it."

She was dragging herself to the Rockwell's house. She guessed Betty thought that she was beaten enough to do whatever she wished, because she hadn't felt that terrible compulsion to obey after the last incident. She felt a firm grip on her arm, interrupting her musing on Betty's powers. She tiredly turned her head in the direction of whoever had decided to bother her now. Her mouth creased in puzzlement when she saw it was an older woman with a manic gleam in her eyes. "Go to the abandoned house. Inside there's a failsafe terminal. Kill all of us, and leave Braun here to suffer!" The woman pushed a crumbled piece of paper into Jennifer's limp hand.

"Braun? I haven't seen him here."

Looking back into the woman's eyes, Jennifer saw years and years of pain lingering in their depths. She knew she'd only suffered a fraction of whatever this woman had suffered here. The knowledge of it didn't lessen her own hurt, but seeing it solidified her resolve in a way she hadn't felt since speaking to Betty that first time.

"Braun is Betty." Abruptly, the woman straightened in a macabre fashion and went in the opposite direction of the Rockwell's house. Jennifer knew the woman's time was up and secretly applauded her resolve.

Jennifer quickly scanned the cul-de-sac. Normal house, normal house, normal house . . . _There!_ The abandoned house suddenly sharpened into her focus. She would have right passed by it had the woman not warned her when she did. She clenched the fist with the paper, flexed her legs, and sprang into an explosion of motion. In a few mere bounds that should have been impossible with her short, childish legs, she hopped the hanging picket fence and slammed into the door, opening it with a crash, heart hammering unsteadily in her chest. Jennifer had gotten there just in time, as she'd felt the undeniable compulsion to stop and turn and plead for mercy the moment before she broke through the door.

She sighed in relief. Maybe this nightmare was almost over.

Gathering her strength, she unfolded the crumpled piece of paper and squinted in the dim light of the foyer to read the scribblings.

_Radio, pitcher, gnome, pitcher, cinder block, gnome, bottle._

Jennifer wearily rubbed her eyes. _What?_ After a moment of gratifying confusion, irritation, and self-pity, she opened her eyes and studied the room in the half darkness. It was covered in an assortment of knick-knacks and, well, trash, frankly. However, she did eventually identify all of the objects on the paper. _Now what?_

Eventually, she just decided to go up to each and poke them. She wasn't even surprised when the radio gave a high pitched warble in response. Just the icing of freakiness on top of a terrible day.

She tapped the bottle, and as the note faded into the air, she noticed that the cheerful music that had been looping in a soul destroying cacophony had stopped. A terminal shimmered into existence on her right, and a small smile cut through the still wet blood plastered onto her face. _Oh, Braun. How the mighty have fallen_.

* * *

Jennifer gasped back to life. The pod opened with an electronic _hiss_. Everything around her slowly faded back into view, but black dots haunted the edge of her vision, and she could feel herself shaking violently. Dogmeat whined somewhere to her right, and she was suddenly aware of her desperate thirst. She felt the blood crusted across her mouth and chin and down her throat and shakily closed her eyes again, just for a moment. She wiped at the mess with the sleeve of her Vault 112 jumpsuit until she was sure most of it was gone.

Jennifer unhooked herself from the wires and needles that had been reading her vital signs and slipped her legs over the side of the machine. Standing made her head swim, and her legs tingled in the burning-crawling way that told her they had been asleep for some time. She leaned all of her weight against the side of the pod until the numbness was mostly gone. Reaching for her bag, she opened one of the cans of water stored in the side pockets and snapped the top open.

Jennifer couldn't see her father on the other side of the atrium with the huge mainframe in the way. She assumed he was undergoing a similar process to her, though maybe worse, as he had been in the virtual reality pod for who-knows how long. Weeks, at this point. How long _had_ she been out in the Wasteland?

She downed the can of water in under a minute and stood there, tightly gripping the side of the pod until her knuckles went white. Jennifer started her breathing exercises, trying to maintain her composure. _Breathe in one, two, three, four. Breathe out one, two, three, four._ Over and over again. She prided herself on being calm, in-control, all the time no matter what. A hot lump started rising in her throat that made it hard to breathe. She had her emotions under control, _dammit!_

"Honey? Are you okay?" She heard slow footsteps coming towards her. Jennifer clapped a hand to her mouth to try and stop the crying, but it was a wasted effort. She breathed out harshly as the tears started rolling down her cheeks, and her father's hand hesitantly touched her shoulder. She vaguely heard Dogmeat whine in the background and felt his comforting weight press against her leg.

Her father tried to put an arm around her shoulders and she jerked back away from the unfamiliar gesture. Suddenly, having him right there in front of her with her back to the pod was making her feel like a trapped animal. She slid through the free space to her side and backed away enough to have room to breathe - or to try to, at least.

"Jennifer. Tell me what's wrong." The look he gave her told her that move had just used up all of his sympathy, and the almost-annoyed note in his voice was suddenly the most familiar thing in the world right now. That's the tone of voice he always used when she was being unnecessarily difficult. She couldn't recall how many times he'd said something exactly like that.

"I just-" She cleared her throat and her father almost looked impatient. The look lit a fiery ball of rage in her chest. "Jonas died, did you know? After you left. The guards beat him to death and he drowned in his own blood." It hadn't been what she meant to say, but the shocked, hurt look on his face made it worth it.

"What? Why would I know? I couldn't have predicted something like that!" Her father furrowed his brow and frowned slightly. "The Overseer has always been harsh, but not unreasonable. Why would he do that?" Watching him made the rage spread out from her chest, flowing through her veins, and pumped with the beat of her heart. The heat of it was enough to stop her tears.

"Because you left, because the Overseer is a crazy bastard, how should I know? He's not the only person you hurt by leaving." Jennifer remembered Amata sitting in that interrogation room, covered in bruises, bleeding and crying, and suddenly there wasn't a thing in the world the man in front of her could say that would make her forgive him.

"Honey, I'm so sorry, I didn't know… I didn't know he would do something like that…" Her father swallowed and waved his hands in a meaningless gesture. "I just wanted to keep you safe. You've seen what's out here. You have to understand what I was trying to accomplish!"

Jennifer clenched her teeth so hard that her jaw ached. She had seen what was out there, but instead of playing the hero, her father should have planned to take her and Jonas and Amata - if she wanted to come with them - to the surface and avoid this mess entirely. He always did think he was the only one capable of doing anything correctly. And maybe, she could admit to herself, it did hurt - just a little - that she was always left out; that he didn't think she could do anything right. "I don't _have_ to do anything! You've always put your projects before me. This isn't any different." She felt the aluminum of the canned water crumple in her clenched fist. The metal bit into her skin in a satisfying way.

She watched the shutters come down behind his eyes, and her father stared at her with a firm gaze; the one that meant the conversation was about to be over whether she was ready for it to be or not. "This project is bigger than you and me. I'm trying to accomplish something that will help everyone out here. That will leave a legacy."

He just made her want to scream sometimes. _What about me! Am I not enough of a legacy for you?_ She didn't know what to say to make him _understand_ so she said nothing at all. He nodded his head in a satisfied way, like he had won the argument.

She hadn't usually thought this far ahead when she had pictured how this reunion would go, but it hadn't been anything like this. Jennifer had pictured him saying _Look at how far you've come! You've helped so many people! I'm so proud!_ but she hadn't gotten warmth like that from him since she was a child. Maybe that's how this conversation would have gone if she hadn't pulled away from him moments before - if she hadn't been difficult, like always - but now there was a gap between them and it felt like a yawning chasm, endlessly deep. She didn't know how to cross it, had never been able to, and her father never made the effort in return; or, if he did, it was in ways that she couldn't recognize and understand.

It had always been like this between them, at least a little, for as long as she could remember and only grew worse as she got older. Cool glances, little humor, the disappointment on his end and the frustration from her in return. An endless, spiraling mess that dragged them down and twisted them into shapes she couldn't recognize anymore.

"It's fine if you don't want to talk to me. We need to go to Rivet City and convince Madison and her team that the G.E.C.K is real, and that it can do what we need it to do. I'll gather my things and we'll head out."

The rage had stolen what was left of her voice. All she could do was glare at the ground, seething, hurt. The can of water fell from her grip with a clatter; she clenched her fist and watched the blood from the cuts seep through her fingers.

* * *

A/N: I'm not trying to bash James's character, just explore a different type of relationship between the two of them. Their relationship will be explored more in future chapters, and remember that Jennifer is a biased narrator.


	17. Chapter 17

Jennifer quickly stood from her kneeling position; her knees _popped_ loudly in protest. She silently told them to stop complaining. The skin of her arms prickled in response to the smell of ozone, courtesy of her laser rifle. She unzipped her medical kit from the Vault and packed her freshly-looted stimpaks away.

She looked down at the man in black armor, covered in a array of fresh burns. The smell of cooked flesh hovered heavily in the air. His waxy eyes stared back at her blankly. _Thank you, Talon Company. Your contribution to the Good Fight is greatly appreciated. _Jennifer had been ambushed - again - and she was apparently doing alright with this fighting thing, because they hadn't been all that difficult to kill this time around. Her ears were still ringing from that grenade, though.

And her father was sending her curious looks. She could tell he was about to ask her a probably insensitive question about the subject._ Three, two, one . . ._

"So what did you do to have the Talon Company sent after you?" His reliability in these situations continued to amaze her.

"All I know about these guys is what I've heard from Three Dog on the news. This is the second time they've done this." Dogmeat finished his investigation of the dead bodies - primarily through sniffing them - and plastered himself to her leg. He hadn't wanted to wander off too far since they'd left the garage. She marveled at her luck in finding such a wonderful friend. "They didn't really seem like they wanted to sit down for some tea either time."

She stepped over to the next man and upended his bag, then moved on to his cargo pockets. Rifling through dead people's pockets had become second nature to her out here, as she suspected it was for everyone. Her hand closed around a sharply ridged plastic object. _Holotape?_ She fished out her prize and reveled for a moment in her correct guess._ Ah, validation. How I love you._

She popped the last holotape out of her Pip-Boy - briefly recalling her stay in Rivet City - and slid the fresh one in. There was a long moment of static, crackling, before a voice began to play out of the tiny speakers.

"_Boys and girls, we've got ourselves another holier-than-thou white-knight who needs putting down." _The person gave a brief description of her: dark hair, pale skin, short. She really did take after her father in looks, if not in personality. "_The bounty is one thousand caps this time around. And for a change of pace, they want the head this time. Good hunting!"_

"Wait, what do you _mean_ one thousand caps?! I'm worth way more than that!" She replayed the holotape again just to be sure she heard correctly. "Ugh, they can't even put a good price on me. No wonder there's only been two hit squads."

Her father was staring at her like she'd gone insane. "Jennifer Catherine Williams!"_ Oh God, not the full name. _"I don't think that's an appropriate response to finding out people are trying to assassinate you."

She felt a stab of annoyance and rolled her eyes at him. "It's called coping with humor, Dad. And I didn't realize there was a correct way to respond to having assassins sent after you." He shook his head at her in disapproval or . . . something else? No, definitely disappointment. He never thought what she said was funny.

"You could try meditation, or perhaps confession. I've heard those are good for the soul."

She felt a wave of confusion wash over her. He'd gone from bitter silence to trying to joke? Is _that_ what that was? "I've actually rather been enjoying my newfound freetime on Sunday mornings, so if you think I'm willingly going anywhere near a church sometime soon, you have another thing coming." Her mouth tightened in contemplation. "Anyway, the only actual church I know about is in Rivet City."

Her father chuckled in response, his eyes crinkling with, well, humor, she supposed. Jennifer's eyes narrowed in suspicion. Her father was being decidedly _too_ friendly, especially compared to the frosty mutual silence engulfing them after they'd left the garage. She recalled the other times he acted like this and determined that it probably had something to do with their spat after leaving the - she shuddered just recalling it - simulation. He would be overly nice and agreeable with her until he felt like that was apology enough and then turn his attention to more important projects.

"You didn't enjoy being forced to go to church?" She hesitated, not able to tell if he was angry with her or not. "Don't worry, I didn't either. It was worse that their version of it happily agreed with Vault-Tec's agenda and the Overseer's beliefs. Quite the coincidence, don't you think?" She hummed to acknowledge his point. History class in the Vault always portrayed the religious institutions at the time as doing no wrong, but considering that the government worked in tandem with those very same institutions to oppress people with sedition laws and propaganda, she'd always had her own private doubts on that situation.

"Your mother . . ." Jennifer felt excitement blossom in her. She'd silently hoped that she would learn new things about her mom, now that her father didn't have to fit her into the Vault narrative, as she knew neither of her parents were actually _from_ the Vault. ". . . well, anyway, we should get moving. There's a place we can stay at just a few miles southeast, and it's nearing nighttime." Disappointed but not surprised, she followed him down the road towards a tower in the distance, a dark nebulous shape against the horizon.

* * *

Tenpenny Tower was unlike anything she had encountered thus far in terms of settlements, and that was not a compliment on her part. Jennifer silently mused that perhaps she just didn't have enough taste for this _fine_ establishment, or some nonsense the residents would tell her.

The tower tried to radiate a sense of Old World charm, but something about it seemed a little too off - almost like coming back home and finding the furniture moved just a bit to one side. The counters were expensive marble, but they were a little dusty and cracked in places. No shine like the hotels before the war held in the holovids she'd seen. There was a grand chandelier dominating the ceiling of the foyer, gilded and glowing, bits of light refracting from the hanging crystal like tiny stars, but the chain holding up the great monstrosity was rusted and flaking. Smooth jazz warbled out of a restaurant, but the disc would crackle and pop just a bit too often to really be smooth.

The residents here matched their environment. Women's hair perfectly coifed, just a dash of perfume and a smear of makeup, the men all wearing pressed clothes, teeth shining white and black shoes gleaming, but their clothes were all old and mended in places - all vainly trying to fulfill the afterimage a dead society left two centuries ago.

They were all trying to grasp a sense of refinement that held no meaning to anyone but shadows and ghosts. Jennifer was filled with a sense of . . . melancholy, maybe, at the wasted effort. She wanted to build something new, not linger in the old, like these people. A phrase, sudden and clarifying, to define the strange feeling - _Old World blues_ \- and dismissed the unusual emotion from her mind.

Jennifer followed a step and a half behind her father as he led her through the winding halls towards what she assumed was a place they could finally rest. Her shoulders were tensed beyond belief, straps of her worn bag digging into the flesh of her back, and she could practically _feel _the bags beneath her eyes.

They finally found whatever person they were supposed to be speaking to so they could rent rooms, because there was a man with a weak jaw and dark, watery eyes making noises at them and handing them keys and she was following her father down another hall but everything was blurred - lights streaking, noises warbling - and just as suddenly as it started it stopped.

Jennifer blinked at the room around her. It was dark, except for the light of the moon that shone through the mostly-clean glass of the window. Her bag was on the ground, next to the soft couch she was sitting on. There was an open can of water on the coffee table in front of her, along with a package of Fancy Lad Snack Cakes. Neither of them looked touched beyond that. _When the hell did I get here?_ Her mind seemed fuzzy, and she was so, so confused. It was like beating against a brick wall, knuckles raw and streaking blood.

She shifted, and a blanket fell off one shoulder and onto Dogmeat's face. He grumbled at her, now awake, from beneath the soft cloth and thumped his tail once. He was stretched out along the couch, with his head on her right thigh and the left part of her body pressed against the couch arm.

Jennifer reached for the cloth with her left hand and lifted the blanket up from his face. His ears popped back up in response and he lifted his face to sniff at her. She leaned her head down until his cold, cold nose pressed against her cheek and her face felt hot, and wet, and she realized she was crying.

"Hey, buddy, it's okay." Her voice sounded choked. She dropped the blanket onto her lap and leaned down until her face was pressed into the soft fur on the top of his head, between his ears. "Shh, shh, you're fine." Dogmeat thumped his tail again, and she blindly reached out her left hand to scratch his neck. Jennifer was shaking and she couldn't breathe, but she didn't know how to stop.

So the two of them sat there, in the dark.


	18. Chapter 18

Jennifer squinted into the middle distance. She glanced around but it was so obscure, so gloomy, that she couldn't see a foot in front of her. She waved a hand before her, but it wasn't quite fog, just . . . dark.

Leaning forward, she tried to lift her foot, but it was caught in something thick, and red, and murky. She looked down and watched as it took seconds, or minutes, or years for her boot to rise out of the - _what was it?_

She inhaled, and the metallic smell of iron invaded her senses, flooding and drowning. She choked, tried to cough it out, but she wasn't in control of her own lungs anymore.

Her foot finally, _finally_ fell with a splash back into the- the- the _blood_. The field of blood that she was standing in, ankle deep, so dark and pungent that she didn't understand why it took so long for her to recognize it. She watched it splatter and stain against the cloth of her jumpsuit, arching into the air in a terrible wave, dark red against vibrant blue.

Jennifer's gaze shifted from her submerged boots to the object just next to her, bobbing and floating. Leaning down, her hand slowly, so, _so_ slowly reached. Cold skin met the tips of her fingers, and she-

_-gasped_ as she woke from sleep, shaking and sweating, cold as she's ever been, right down to her bones.

* * *

The mirror in the bathroom connected to Jennifer's hotel room was old. She rolled her eyes at herself - _everything_ in this world was old. To be more precise, this mirror looked older than most other things in the hotel. The edges of it were scuffed and dark patches littered its reflective surface, from where the backing had peeled away. A small crack ran along the top of it, and she wished good luck on the poor soul who'd made it, because none of them needed even more bad luck out here, especially from some stupid mirror.

She squinted at herself in this old mirror and more vigorously applied force to the stubborn blood splatter that was smeared along the edge of her jaw, near her ear. The hotel had some sort of running water, but the pressure was abysmal. There was barely enough to fill the sink with any - she couldn't imagine trying to run a shower on this. Regardless that the only other places that she knew of that had any running water were Megaton and maybe Rivet City, and Megaton's pipes were always trying to spring a leak and make the pressure there an unsafe bet at the best of times.

The washcloth had been hidden under the sink and perhaps forgotten, seeing as it was the only one of its kind down there. She'd spent the last part of an hour scrubbing herself clean to try and make herself feel the tiniest bit better. After that… _dream_ that she'd woken up from, she had to try and do something, at least, to calm her nerves. And she hated being dirty, so here she was - standing in front of an old mirror, stripped naked to her waist, trying to get clean.

Jennifer balled up the washcloth in one hand and squeezed all of the water in it back into the sink. She watched the blood mix with the water and swirl hypnotizingly. Apparently she'd gotten the splatter off her face. She hadn't noticed.

Looking at it reminded her of the dream she'd woken up from. Usually they weren't so abstract as that one, just a replaying of actual events gone horribly wrong, which made it stand out in her mind. And by that, she means burned into it so forcefully that it replayed itself in a constant, unending loop for the past hour and a bit, just so she could suffer. The thought made her lightheaded, and Jennifer smacked her palms down onto the marble countertop. Her hands connected with a wet _slap_ and Dogmeat looked up from his perch on the couch.

He'd sprawled out after she'd jumped awake and ran off, and his furry body covered the length of it. Bastard. He knew she didn't have the heart to make him move, which means she'd have to take the bed if she wanted to get any more sleep tonight. Or rather, if she _could_ get any more sleep. She hated sleeping in beds that weren't the one in her house in Megaton. It felt like someone could get her.

She lifted a hand to rub at her eye with the wet heel and studied herself in the mirror. If she was being really honest with herself, she looked fucked _up._ Her eyes roamed the star shaped bullet scars that littered her torso - two in her midsection and one on her ribs - that she'd gotten so soon after leaving the Vault. _Thank God for Red . . ._ Bruises were a permanent fixture under her eyes, now. She couldn't remember the last time she'd had a restful night's sleep. Nowhere felt safe enough out here, except sometimes Megaton, when she stayed long enough to fool herself into an illusion of domesticity.

And those can't even compare to the awful amount of weight that she'd lost. Jennifer thought she'd been eating enough, but the inconsistency of her meals combined with the lack of sleep and the sheer amount of physical exercise was taking its toll, and it made her look like a ghost.

She wondered what Amata would think of her, looking like this. Like she was dead.

* * *

After a thorough washing of her Vault jumpsuit - the things were made to be practically wash-n-wear, and it dries almost as fast as you can blink - and a scrubbing down of her undershirt, she meandered back into the hallway, fully dressed and actually feeling a bit better. She supposed that she had just been suffering from a delayed emotional reaction to the - she shuddered - _simulation_ and had suffered a bit of shock after arriving in a relatively safe environment. That was her professional diagnosis, at least, and she wasn't going to ponder the situation much further than that. No point in pressing on a scabbed wound, after all.

Jennifer decided to have a look around the hotel, because she'd done all there was to do in her room - sorting through her supplies, cleaning Amata's 10mm pistol, washing herself and her clothes - and it was _still_ ridiculous o'clock in the morning and she figured that it would be better to try and get a look around before everyone else was awake.

More importantly, she wanted to find someone that was marginally in charge, because she saw that little spat between the gate guard and the ghoul outside, and she wanted to know what the hell was going on around here. She vaguely remembered Three Dog talking about this place on the radio, but she hadn't listened to Galaxy News in so long that she couldn't recall what he said.

The rooms they'd been renting out were located near the ground floor, so she looked for some stairs leading up and started climbing. Jennifer assumed whatever asshat that put this place together wouldn't settle for anything less than the penthouse.

* * *

She loved being right. After talking to the only guard that she'd actually seen on her way up Tenpenny Tower, she discovered that the owner of the place was called Alistair Tenpenny and that all of these people here were racist or something - xenophobic? bigoted? - to the ghouls. Which honestly confused her so badly she just kind of had to lean against a wall and think about life for a minute. _This shit is ridiculous. Literally the only thing about them is that their skin is peeled off. That's it. And some of them for sure have some kind of secret pre-war knowledge that the rest of us don't, which makes them useful. More than can be said about the rest of these stupid fucking wastelanders._

She sighed and pushed off from the wall, shaking her head. She was too damn tired for this.

Walking further down the hall, the doorway at the end opened up into some kind of large room. Seems that she found Alistair Tenpenny's penthouse suite. There were several doors around the room, but the only one she was interested in was red and had a guard sat outside of it. _Bingo._

She reached into a pocket on her gunbelt and attached the stealth boy onto her Pip-Boy. Activating it, it gave a tiny _beep_ and she watched her arms disappear. She softened her steps, the way she learned to so that the clomping of her Vault boots didn't give her away, and stepped into the shadows along the wall. The man might have noticed her silhouette in the small room, but he seemed more interested in picking at his thumb nail than actually guarding.

Grabbing a knife from the sheath on her boot, she adjusted her grip and struck as hard and fast as possible. The hilt connected with his temple, and the man slumped out of his chair and onto the floor in an unconscious heap.

She turned off the stealth boy and stepped over the man, entering the room.

* * *

Jennifer hadn't really imagined in any depth what kind of person might be awaiting her. She definitely was not expecting an old man wearing a flamboyant red suit. Her life really was a cheesy holovid, wasn't it?

Alistair Tenpenny was standing out on the balcony, watching the sun rise in a beautiful array of pinks and oranges, his hands clasped behind his back. He turned to face her suddenly on his heel, and the abruptness of the motion startled her, making her jump a tad. He raised an eyebrow at her thoughtfully.

"Well, well. They don't usually let visitors in to see me. Which is sad, because I'm bored out of my right mind." He inclined his head towards the room behind her. "Just how did you manage to get past that guard?" He even had a British accent._ Where the hell are all these Europeans coming from, anyway? First Moriarty, now this idiot._

She thought about what she should tell him for a long moment then shrugged. "I used a stealth boy and knocked him out cold. He wasn't paying much attention to his surroundings."

Tenpenny exhaled slowly. "Much as I expected. You can rest assured that his posting here will be . . . terminated." Jennifer wondered if she just got a man killed, then decided that she didn't care very much anyway. He gestured to the small table and chairs set next to him. "Why don't we sit for our conversation?"

Accepting the ridiculousness of the situation, she nodded. He took a seat across from her with a flourish. He crossed his legs, one knee over the other, and leaned back to study her. After a moment of silence, Tenpenny seemed to come to some sort of personal conclusion. "You're the one that radio host has been talking about on his little show. The Lone Wanderer from the Vault, is it?"

Jennifer's face creased in confusion. "Is it?" At his raised brow, she clarified. "I haven't listened in to Three Dog for a while now. I had no idea he'd come up with some sort of nickname for me."

Tenpenny nodded. "Quite the little nomenclature, if I do say so myself. You seem to be making quite the reputation for yourself. Running around saving towns and doctors turned damsels." She wondered where he was going with this. "Towns like Megaton, for example." Her entire body tensed, ready to leap away.

She recalled that Mister Burke, the one who'd tried to blow Megaton sky-high and murder Lucas Simms, worked for somebody at Tenpenny Tower. It didn't take much guessing to assume that this was his employer. And that he would be royally pissed about losing his asset.

Tenpenny put a hand up to pacify her. She was not pacified.

"I don't hold a grudge about all that. Mister Burke was a gem of a man, and he'll be dearly missed, but employees are replaceable, after all." She briefly thought of the guard outside. "How about we strike up a little deal between us?" He steepled his fingers together and leaned forward, blue eyes sharp as a razor and cold as the air in Anchorage.

She breathed in slowly and silently. "One thing, first." He nodded at her to go on. "Are you the one that's hired out Talon Company hit squads on me?" He seemed genuinely startled at that.

"As a matter of fact, I have not. And I haven't the foggiest who might." Jennifer hummed her disappointment. Tenpenny was a slimy bastard, but his reaction seemed genuine, which was disappointing. Meaning she still had no lead on the situation.

"Now, about our deal." Jennifer's lips pressed into a thin line. Whatever it was he was going to ask, she knew she wasn't going to be interested, and that she wasn't just going to be able to stand up and walk away from the man. "Let's say you take care of this ghoul problem, and I let you walk away from my fine hotel without slaughtering you. That sounds about fair, doesn't it?"

Her eyes narrowed at him appraisingly, and she opened her mouth to say something hopefully witty when she heard the ominous _click _of a gun.

They made eye contact. She hadn't noticed his hand slip beneath the table. His expression seemed to be trying to tell her to think about this carefully. He hadn't considered the fact that she hadn't been thinking carefully since the moment she left the Vault. Earlier even than that; when Amata woke her up and told her that her father had left.

Which is why he didn't seem to expect her to grab the table and throw it to the side so forcefully that it hit the wall with a _clang! _She heard the gun go off with a muffled _crack_ but she was more preoccupied with getting ahold of the man across from her.

Tenpenny leaped up from his chair and knocked it backwards in his haste to get away from her. Unluckily for him, she already had her knife in her hand. The first slash at him missed when he leaped back to dodge. He hit the railing behind him, and the second swing of her knife didn't miss.

She buried the thing in his throat and jerked her arm sideways, practically ripping out his throat in the process. She felt warm blood spray across her face. Jennifer stepped backwards, pulling the knife out as she did.

She looked down at her blood-soaked knife and coolly watched the dark red blood _drip, drip, drip _onto the floor. Either piece by piece or all at once she'd become the kind of person that would slit an old man's throat without remorse or hesitation. The realization sat numbly in the hollow of her throat.

* * *

The goddamned rat bastard shot her in the thigh. She only noticed after she slit the unconscious guard's throat and tried to drag him into Tenpenny's room. Her adrenaline must've worn off by then, because she almost collapsed with the strain of it.

Jennifer hissed through clenched teeth and applied a stimpak to her femoral artery in her right thigh. She suffered through the unpleasant feeling of her skin slowly knitting itself back together, and after a few moments she straightened up and finished her task. Now all she had to do was find her father - again - and leave Tenpenny Tower. Easy peasy, right? She sprinted down the staircase to get back to the floor her room is on.

Not really, as it would turn out, because he wasn't very pleased to see her disgusting blood-splattered face. He'd come to her room so that they could leave and continue on to Rivet City, which was great because she _also_ wanted to leave, immediately if possible. Unfortunately, the two of them didn't seem to be communicating on the same wavelength, as per usual.

"What do you _mean_ you murdered Alistair Tenpenny?! I didn't bring you here so you could kill even more people!" Her father wasn't really capable of listening and Jennifer clenched her jaw in frustration.

"Like I've been trying to tell you, he pulled a gun on me! I killed his henchman out in Megaton! You remember that guy that was trying to blow up the place? The one I stopped?!" She shoved her Vault jumpsuit in her bag and pulled on a pair of jeans, the only other actual pants that she owned, and laced up her boots. She wasn't comfortable only wearing jeans and the white t-shirt that she wears under her Vault suit, but needs must.

"And you couldn't have talked to the man instead?" She heard him sigh and imagined he was shaking his head at her, disappointed. She felt a spike of bitterness rise in her._ It wasn't her fault!_

"So you think I should've killed those ghouls out there? Is that it?" Jennifer clamped down on the anger rising in her. She felt so volatile nowadays, swinging from one extreme emotion to the next. What was wrong with her?

Jennifer turned and watched her father bring a hand up to rub at his temple. "No, but we really don't have time to argue the point at the moment." For the first time, he looked as tired as she felt. "But believe me, we will be revisiting the topic sometime soon."

Her shoulders dropped dejectedly. She wiped a hand against her still-damp face. Dogmeat padded up to her. "Hey, buddy." He wagged his tail a few times, completely oblivious to the tension in the room. She felt unreasonably envious of him for a moment. "Let's get out of here, huh?"

The three of them headed for the exit. Going down the stairs was a nerve wracking experience, but she tried to play it cool. Nobody had sounded the alarm, and there were barely any people wandering out anyway. It would be fine.

And it was, actually. The guard stopped them at the gate so the thing could roll open, and out the three of them went, into the wasteland. Jennifer breathed a sigh of relief. That was one mess that she planned to never revisit. Honestly? The ghouls would have to take care of themselves.

* * *

A/N: Readers may recall the conversation had in chapter 10 with the Talon mercenary. The information conflict is not an accident.

Also, with the posting of this chapter, _Through the Valley of Death _will finally be caught up with AO3 in terms of chapters. Moving forward, the two will be updated at the same time. To anyone reading this, thanks for putting up with the strange uploading schedule so we could get here. Remember to leave reviews, and feel free to hmu at my Tumblr knoxxie-writes for secret, behind-the-scenes info!


	19. Chapter 19

Jennifer's mouth pinched in concentration as she turned a - what was it? a fuse? - over in her hands a few times. The Project Purity team had been out at the Memorial for several days now. Jennifer threw the possible-fuse back into a box full of other junk with a resounding rattle. They'd been out at the Memorial for a few days now, and she'd been doing about fuck-all nothing for most of them.

Her father, predictable as always, had pretty much abandoned her to focus on his precious water project to the exclusion of all else. Only if he wasn't lecturing her, of course. It was especially bad between them now after Tenpenny Tower. He didn't much like the way she _handled _that whole situation, and he wasn't afraid to let her know that in excruciating detail. While, of course, ignoring the fact that she'd been helping all kinds of people since she'd left the Vault.

She sighed and ran her hand through her hair in agitation. Jennifer turned towards the door and grabbed the tubing she'd been sent off to get on the way out. She wanted to help with the project, too, but it was either something so technical that it went completely over her head, or it was some menial fetch task that sent her out of the team's way for a solid hour or so. _Like this one._ Jennifer noticed _that_, too. Her father was at least trying to keep her out of everyone's way while they worked. Useless to him as usual, she supposed.

Her boots hit the metal walkway in a series of echoing _clangs _that sent the dried blood of the previous supermutant inhabitants flying in small flakes. As she neared the main work area, she softened her footsteps in response to the gentle, echoing voices that drifted down the hallway towards her. It sounded like her father and . . . Doctor Li? _Strange that they're not yelling._ The two of them argued almost as much as she and her father did.

". . . Telling you . . . not a problem . . ." She frowned in consideration and came to a complete stop. She heard Doctor Li mumble in reply, but it was too faint to decipher. ". . . Not possible . . . thinks I'm dead . . ." _Who thinks that? Why?_

Doctor Li muttered something about increased surveillance activity and Jennifer wished for once in her life that she would be as annoyingly loud and confrontational as she usually was. Their shadows moved alarmingly closer to the doorway leading to the hall she was lurking in, and she panicked at the thought of them catching her eavesdropping. "Dad?" Her voice echoed through the mostly-empty space and the shadows froze in response.

"Over here, Jennifer!" His response prompted her to start moving again. They met in the doorway leading to one of the offices. As expected, Jennifer could see Doctor Li was standing near a stack of papers on the desk, staring at her shrewdly. She turned her attention back to her father. He smiled at her, but she could tell it was fake. Probably worried that she'd overheard them.

She lifted the tubes in response and raised an eyebrow. "I got these like you asked, but when you weren't in the Rotunda, I wasn't sure where to look." She lowered her arm back down and the tubes smacked her hip. "Didn't realize you were gonna run off on me."

He chuckled, slightly more genuinely, grabbed the tubes from her, and clapped a hand onto her shoulder. "Thanks, honey. It means a lot how much you're doing to help with the project, and I appreciate it."

Confusion swept over her in a painful wave, and her brow crinkled in response. She wondered what angle he was playing here; he'd already reassured himself that she hadn't heard anything. So . . . what?

Jennifer smiled, or it felt a little like her face pulled in what seemed like a smile, and she extracted herself from under his grip. "Yeah. Of course. I'm just gonna go . . . do something else? If you don't need anything, that is." He shook his head in response with a strange look growing on his face. _Right. Of course not._

She headed towards the room she'd claimed after moving all the supermutant bodies out of the Memorial. Moira's next chapter of the Wasteland Survival Guide wasn't going to finish itself, after all.

* * *

Jennifer blew gently on the page she held lightly between two fingers. Eraser shavings dramatically fell to join the growing pile on the desk, alongside several other papers covered in drawings. The last time she'd met with Moira in Megaton, she'd been given several tasks to complete for the second chapter. One was to give a detailed field guide of general emergency medicine. As Jennifer had been trained as a doctor in the Vault, this wasn't a particularly difficult task, but still rather time consuming. She'd also saved herself from becoming Moira's guinea pig, _again_. She still didn't know the side effects of the mutation she'd gotten after her little brush with death by way of radiation poisoning.

Jennifer had already finished the actual written guide and decided to brush up on her drawing skills and include a few diagrams. The first few pages had turned out pretty badly, showing her little practice in the years since she'd given up the talent - or, rather, been told to stop after paper shortages in the Vault had gotten too bad. She was slowly getting the hang of it, though.

Jennifer leaned back in her desk chair and slowly stretched her cramped wrist. Chapter two also included the history of the second oldest settlement in the region, Rivet City, and general tips for founding and governing a large settlement. The last was to check out the Arlington Library and retrieve the book catalog. As she stretched, she realized with dawning comprehension that both of those sites were close to the Memorial. Rivet City was practically a hop, skip, and a step there and back.

Jennifer almost slapped herself. _Why the hell am I just sitting around here when I could be getting other shit done?_ With renewed invigoration, she started collecting her papers and throwing them into her bag. Dogmeat looked up from his perch on her mattress with a startled tilt of his head. "Need to go tell dad that we're gonna run some errands. Shouldn't take us very long, huh, boy?" He started to wag his tail in enthusiastic response, which she took for agreement.

* * *

Her father hadn't been in his room, or anywhere else she could find, so she just left him a note outlining her plans and headed out with Dogmeat. He ran around, happy to finally be free to roam around with minimal supervision, sniffing everything in reasonable range. Her cigarette dangling from her fingers, Jennifer let out a snort of smoke at his antics. Right, and she'd gotten a lecture about that new habit, too. With growing annoyance, she rebelliously stuck the thing back in her mouth. She was an adult, and she could do what she wanted.

Rivet City was just as ominous and grand as the last time she visited, a dark silhouette against the horizon, the creaking of the metal on the water echoing in the silence. The positive difference between then and now was that she wasn't sleep deprived and wielding only a 10mm pistol. Her skin crawled at the memory. How she'd survived that little endeavor, she'd never know.

Rivet City security had luckily been by recently to clear out the supermutant camp, or so she assumed, so entering the city was a matter of climbing the ramp, pressing the comm button, and waiting for the bridge to swing across.

The marketplace was just as crowded and dim as it had been last time. She dropped off her laser rifle with Flak and Shrapnel - thinking about it breaking had made her paranoid, and she justified to herself that it definitely wasn't too soon for another tune-up - and made her way through the maze of hallways and staircases to the Weatherly Hotel, ditching her cigarette along the way.

Jennifer had barely stepped through the doorway, Dogmeat on her heels, before a little body had shrieked and slammed into her. "Jennifer!" She tensed instinctively before she remembered where she was and forced herself to relax and return the hug. Bryan Wilks was doing well, apparently. Emotionally _and_ physically; she took note of his clean clothes and hair, and how his cheeks had rounded out already, and felt a warm glow suffuse her body. _I sure as hell helped him, didn't I, dad?_

Her thoughts returned to the present as Vera Weatherly stepped out from a back room, took in the sight of them, and laughed prettily. She meandered over, and by the time she was in speaking distance, Bryan had finally released his death grip on her leg and turned his attention to Dogmeat, who had been patiently waiting very admirably for the boy's petting.

"Hey there, vaultie." Vera dropped the box of cleaning supplies in her hands off onto the counter, and settled her hands on her hips with a friendly smile. "What's new with you?"

Oh, no. _Small talk. _The bane of her existence. Jennifer hadn't considered the fact that she would have to talk to people when she decided to visit. "Go ahead and tell me first what Three Dog has said on the radio." She rolled her eyes briefly. "I've learned it's easier to get that out of the way _before_ we start talking."

Vera laughed again and gestured to the dining table set towards the back of the room. Jennifer took the invitation and sat as Vera grabbed three water bottles and some sort of homemade food.

She carried it in a little covered basket; it smelled delicious and, strangely, a little familiar. Her brow furrowed at that. She definitely hadn't seen many familiar foods out here unless they were pre-war, simply because the Vault had a working hydroponics garden and the outside world, well, didn't.

The arrival of food was enough to drag Bryan away from scratching Dogmeat's ears, and the two of them hurried over to the table. Inside the basket were some delicious looking bread rolls. She and Bryan politely waited for Vera to take one first, before they both dove for them like they'd been starved.

Vera swallowed a bite of bread and raised an eyebrow at the two of them. "I was going to save these for dinner, but I figured I may as well feed you if you're going to drop by to visit us."

Jennifer guiltily stopped chewing her delicious mouthful of roll. "You don' haf to feed me, Fera." Speaking with her mouth full, too. Her father would have her head if he could see her. Bryan was already on her case, as it was.

"No talkin' wif your mouwf full!" He pointed a finger at her accusingly and spoke through his own full mouth. If only he was old enough to understand irony.

Vera just shook her head at the two of them in mock despair.

* * *

After everyone had calmed down and eaten their fill, Jennifer filled Vera in on what had happened since they'd seen each other last and what she was doing in Rivet City now. She actually didn't have to do most of the talking, because Vera could talk enough for the both of them. Turns out some of the new things Three Dog had reported on her included her venturing into the Anchorage simulation, saving Bryan, killing the Evergreen Mills raiders, and her and her father arriving at the Jefferson Memorial. He also accused her of murdering Alistair Tenpenny on the grounds that she had already had a hand in everything else happening, so why not that, too?

His reports were_ somewhat accurate_, she supposed, but they generally made her out to seem much more heroic than even she considered herself. Except for whatever the hell he thought happened between her and the Brotherhood Outcasts. Apparently everyone thought she had gone down there and slaughtered them, which they had actually done to each other, and she told Vera that rather heatedly.

Vera raised her hands in innocence. "I believe you, but that doesn't change what Three Dog has been saying about the situation for however long that story has been running. Just be careful if you run into any more of them, alright? They're certainly not going to want to be your friend now."

Jennifer conceded the point rather dejectedly. Just another thing she needed on her plate.

* * *

With Vera's advice, Jennifer visited Seagrave Holmes, who had apparently lived in the city since he was young and would know who to speak to for the history of the city. After talking with him, he pointed her to Pinkerton, who she should have thought of first, anyway.

Jennifer grumpily dragged herself through the cold, disgusting water and further into the broken bow of the ship. At least the mirelurks hadn't returned, or she really would've been in trouble, as her laser rifle was still on Flak's worktable in several pieces.

Emerging through the doorway, Pinkerton's lab was a cluster of different equipment and electronics of various purposes. Most of the medical tools she could recognize, but a lot of the more stuff lying around was completely foreign to her.

Pinkerton had his back turned away from the door and was facing some man with his shirt off, sitting on a medical exam table. She hadn't realized anyone else knew about the old scientist down here, except, of course, for . . .

"Hey, Harkness." She approached the two of them, Pinkerton now leaning down to type on a terminal, grumbling, and the security chief still sitting stoically on the table's edge. He nodded politely back at her.

"Jennifer. What are you doing down here?" He waved a hand around, generally indicating their surroundings.

"Why, the same reason you're down here, I assume." At his raised brow, she elaborated. "To enjoy Doctor Pinkerton's lovely company."

Harkness smirked at her, and they both looked over to the doctor in question, as his grumbling deepened at their conversation. She smiled more fully at Harkness. "Actually, I've been sent to find out about Rivet City's founding and general governing history. What about you?" Her eyes roamed across his chest, noting the scars scattered across his pectorals. She wondered how they had gotten there. "I've read enough novels to know that I may not want to stick around with you half-naked. Might get steamy in here."

He sputtered at her insinuation, and she smoothly cut across his embarrassed stammering. "Only joking, Harkness. Calm down and breathe."

He shook his head at her. "I'm _only _here for a check-up. Seemed prudent to make use of the one doctor that knows anything about my unique . . . condition, I suppose, while I can."

Pinkerton straightened up with a series of _cracks_ and turned an eagle eye on the two of them. "If both of you are quite done, then? You're free to go, A3-21, and I'll speak with you further about the things we discussed at a later point." Harkness hopped off the table and donned his undershirt. She didn't miss the way his face darkened at Pinkerton's use of his old android name. The doctor turned to her. "As for you, I'll help you with your damned research as long as you never again imply I'm having sexual relations with my patients, especially the mechanical ones. Clear?"

Jennifer caught Harkness's eye on his way out, and the two of them almost burst out laughing. "Crystal clear, doctor."

* * *

Jennifer woke up slowly and stretched. She had stayed overnight in a room rented from Vera, and now she wanted to check in with her father at the Memorial and go finish up at the Arlington Library. That would also require getting out of bed, which she wasn't particularly inclined to do at the moment, as she had just had the first full night's sleep since she had left Megaton and she wasn't particularly inclined to ruin that just yet.

She rolled over and considered everything that had happened yesterday, with Harkness in particular. He seemed hesitant at first, but he didn't seem to hold any ill will towards everything that happened between them. That was good. Her actions, while rash, were still what seemed to be the best decision, and she was glad to note that he hadn't tried to reinstate his memory block.

A wet nose touched the back of her neck, interrupting her thoughts, and she yelped in surprise and jerked away. Dogmeat took this as an invitation to jump up on the bed with her, which it most certainly was _not_, and start huffing at her for something. Food, probably. She sighed at him in exasperation. _Damn mangy animal._

She rolled herself out of bed and grabbed him some of her brahmin jerky. He started munching on it noisily, and she pet the scruff at the back of his neck. "Good boy." He wagged his tail at her without looking up from his meal. "Except for the part where you put your gross nose on my neck. That sucked." He promptly ignored that part. Bastard.

* * *

The Jefferson Memorial rose up in the distance as she left Rivet City, and she felt a lightness in her chest that hadn't been there in a long while. She didn't know what put her in such a good mood, but she was determined to ride out the feeling for as long as possible.

Dogmeat followed her through the winding halls of the Memorial, where they briefly dropped off her bag and went to go see her father. She supposed she should check in with him, even though she had left a note. He may be curious about what she'd been up to, and she could sit and tell him about the things she did at Rivet City, and-

A loud and abrupt _bang_ derailed her thoughts, and she turned wildly to try and locate the source of the noise. She caught a brief glance of somebody rushing at her before she was locked in their arms and she couldn't breathe, _couldn't breathe-_

The person pulled back, and as she gathered her wits enough to realize it was her father, he shook her by his grip on her upper arms. Not hard, but hard enough. "Jennifer! Where the hell have you been?!"

She knew he was speaking to her but the words didn't make sense and she still couldn't breathe. Her breath wheezed out of her chest. "What? I-"

He interrupted her, wide-eyed and panicked. "It's dangerous out there, Jennifer! You shouldn't have left, and especially without telling me where the hell you were going. What were you thinking?"

Jennifer's chest finally, _finally _loosened enough for her to take a deep breath and ease the pressure behind her eyes. Her heart thudded in her chest, loudly. "I told you where. I left a note in your room. I couldn't find you."

He looked at her with wide eyes and shook his head; his grip on her upper arms was still tight, too tight. "No, I meant you should have _told_ me where you were going. Why would you just leave without saying a word?"

Righteous indignation flooded her veins, along with a bucket of ice water. She felt cold, very cold, all the way down to her bones. When she spoke, her words spilled out of her smoothly and easily. "Yeah, I wonder where I got that from, huh, dad? Just leaving without a word and only a note. You should be grateful there wasn't a dead body to go along with it."

He reared back from her and released his grip on her upper arms. "I- you-" He stuttered, seemingly unsure what he wanted to start with. "You shouldn't talk about what happened like that, Jennifer. I already apologized for how I left."

Her brow wrinkled in confusion. "No. You didn't." Was _that_ how he interpreted the mess of a conversation they had after they escaped Braun? He thought he _apologized?_ She wondered what the hell reality he was living in.

He shook his head in denial, confused hurt plain on his face. "I just- That's not the point. I was just saying that if you plan on leaving, please let me know, alright? I worry about you."

She tried to reign herself in, but she couldn't control the snap in her words. "Were you worried when you left me in the Vault?"

He father sighed, that pained look still on his face. "You want to have this conversation now?" He looked over his shoulder, over at the lab. Jennifer could see the research team pretending they weren't listening in on the conversation.

Which is what he was more concerned about, of course, as always. His _research_. She scoffed and walked around him, starting back towards her room. "No, we don't have to have this conversation _now_, seeing as you're more concerned with your project." She sneered at him over her shoulder. "As usual."

Her father grit his teeth in response, but his patience had held out slightly longer than it ever had before, which surprised her. "Come on. Let's have this conversation, then."

They walked to her claimed room in tense silence, and the door shut behind them with a loud _bang_. Silence unfolded between them, sharp as a knife.

He turned towards her. "Well? Go ahead and say whatever you want to say, then."

The cold fury that had been building into a ball in her chest exploded, sending piercing shards to the furthest reaches of her body. "You never listen to me! You didn't in the Vault and you still don't now. You never let me help with Project Purity, even though I keep asking for things to do! You just send me around to grab things and- and- and I thought it would be different from how things were in the Vault, but they're just the same."

She took a deep breath and he looked like he was about to say something. "Don't interrupt! You're _still_ not listening, don't you see? All I've ever wanted is to help you, to be useful, but you barely even talk to me! You would just get annoyed and send me away and-" She had a sudden memory, from before she took the G.O.A.T. "And you didn't even want me to be a doctor, even though I've only ever wanted to be like you and _mom_-" She choked on her sudden tears. She didn't even know she'd been crying. The thing she wanted to know for so long was screaming to be let out and she couldn't stop herself when she asked. "Do you blame me because she died?"

She couldn't see well through her tears, but he looked stricken by her words. "No, no, honey. How could you ever-" He stopped himself so abruptly that she heard his teeth _click _as his jaw snapped shut. He sighed, deeply. "I don't blame you, baby. Things like that . . . they just happen."

He reached out and she flinched away from him, the burning memory of his grip on her arms just a minute ago too fresh, and he reluctantly pulled his hand away. He still took a step closer to her, though. "I never wanted you to feel like that. You don't annoy me, honey. I worry about you because I don't feel like you talk to me about your feelings." His mouth twisted. "I can see why you feel like you couldn't, though. And all those things you said, about keeping you away from my research and not wanting you to be a doctor, I was trying to keep you safe from the Overseer." He shook his head sadly. "I never thought he would hurt anyone, but I knew he didn't like us and I didn't want it to be directed at you."

She sniffed loudly, her face wet with tears. That made a little sense, but not enough to make all the hurt she's felt go away just like that. But it was something, at least. A beginning. "Okay." She paused, hesitant. "I love you."

His eyes widened in surprise. "I love you too, honey." He reached out again, pleadingly, and she slipped into his arms and hugged him. She also wiped her snotty face against his shoulder for good measure. "I'll try to show you how to do some of the things we're working on with Project Purity, okay?"

She nodded against his shoulder. The cold drained out of her, and her chest felt lighter than it ever had, even compared to this morning, even though the hurt wasn't gone completely. This thing between them didn't feel fixed. Maybe more like burned down. Something new and stronger was taking its place, and she couldn't wait to take these next few steps with her dad, hand in hand.


	20. Chapter 20

After their conversation, her dad outlined how he was going to take a little bit of time out of the upcoming days to start explaining how a lot of the research was done so she could actually start helping in the scientific realm of the project. In the meantime, she silently decided to suck it up and actually start pulling her weight with regards to the manual labor work. _No more complaining._

Jennifer did tell him that she wanted to go ahead and go to the Arlington Library so she could wrap up chapter two of the Wasteland Survival Guide, which led to her explaining more about the book and what she had actually done over at Rivet City, which further led to the conversation they were having about Harkness.

Her dad shook his head in disbelief. "A real android. I can't believe it." He was sat in her desk chair, with his arms crossed and leaning on the back of it.

Jennifer was sitting on the desk, cross-legged. "I know, right? I wouldn't have believed it if I hadn't seen how he reacted to the memory reactivation code."

He brought a hand up and rubbed at his chin. "Quite a few groups have been trying to accomplish that feat for centuries now. You'll remember from history class that the pre-war government had abandoned such a project?" At her affirmative nod, he continued. "Well, I know of a few post-war groups who tried to do the same thing. Which is why it's interesting that I've never heard of this supposed Commonwealth Institute."

She raised an eyebrow at him, interested. "Groups like who? I'm not familiar with many people out here who have the technology or knowledge to even attempt a project like that."

Her dad visibly hesitated at her line of questioning. She felt a prickling sense of unease at his expression, but she couldn't put her finger on why. "If I said the Enclave, would you know who I was referring to?"

Her brow furrowed. She remembered listening to that robot, whistling its patriotic little tune, right after she left the Vault and ventured into Springvale. "They're the ones with the flying robots, right? I listened to some of their radio broadcast, but it all felt really-" She twisted her mouth in contemplation, searching for the right word. "-weird. Out of touch, even."

He stared pensively over her shoulder, gazing at nothing. He almost looked haunted, shadows dancing across his face. After a moment, he snapped out of it and turned back to her. "Yes, that's a fair assessment of them. They consider themselves a continuation of the pre-war government, as its members are descended from important government officials that hid away after the bombs dropped. I've . . . encountered them before."

She waited for him to continue. After his pause stretched into a prolonged silence, her eyes narrowed in mild suspicion. There was definitely something he wasn't telling her, but she wasn't going to push it. They had time to talk in the future. "Okay. So they're not friendly, then?"

His mouth pinched and he shook his head. "No. They're not. Regardless, the Brotherhood defeated them thoroughly on the West Coast and they haven't had as much influence for a long time." He visibly brightened at the thought of their supposed ass-kicking. After a moment, he looked at his Pip-Boy. "Well, if you're going to Arlington Library, you should head out now. You should be able to get there by late afternoon if you move quickly."

She slid off the desk and stretched her legs out. They'd cramped after sitting in one position for so long and protested loudly at being forced to move. Before she started collecting her things, she leaned over and kissed her dad's whiskery cheek. "I'll be back by tomorrow, alright?"

He stared back at her in shock before grinning at her brightly. There was that smile they shared, according to Amata, at least. He pulled her into a hug. "Be safe. It's dangerous out there, and I don't know what you should expect to find. Raiders or supermutants at the very least."

Jennifer mentally pushed down her initial irritated response - _I know how dangerous things are!_ \- and tried to appreciate the concerned sentiment for what it was. After a moment, she pat him on the back and disengaged from the hug. "I'm always careful. Now get out of here so I can get ready."

He rolled his eyes at her in a friendly manner. "Sure thing, honey." The door closing behind him was loud but not angry.

She looked over at Dogmeat, who had been their witness to that baptism by fire. He cocked his head at her questioningly. Jennifer went over to pet him, kneeling down at his side, and shook her head. "Well. That happened."

* * *

After checking her supplies were in order, Dogmeat and Jennifer both left the Memorial site. She never played her radio while traveling in the downtown ruins, afraid that the noise would travel and attract unwanted attention from ghouls, raiders, or supermutants. Or worse, all three.

Unfortunately for the both of them, the Arlington Library was located on the other side of the river from the Memorial, so Jennifer and Dogmeat were forced to travel north for a ways to cross across a dilapidated bridge that was, luckily, still clear of supermutants from the last time they had to travel this way.

Her Pip-Boy_ beeped _to acknowledge that she had reached the marker set on her map for the coordinates of the Arlington Library. She checked her laser rifle's cartridge and glanced at Dogmeat before pushing open the double doors.

The interior wasn't completely dark, as there were windows lining the walls of the building to let sunlight stream through, but the area was simply too big for the natural light of the sun to brighten it completely. Some of the windows were boarded up by rotting woods as well, further limiting the natural light. Rows and rows of shelves were scattered around the room covered in flaked and peeling white paint; many were standing proudly in contrast to their deteriorated state, but many more had collapsed to the ground or were on the verge of it. Books were scattered over every surface: littering the ground and stacked in precarious piles on the remaining shelves.

Many of the books were ravaged by time in some way. Jennifer had seen some books out here before now, but the sight still made her sad. Some were burned, probably by fires started during or after the war. Others just suffered from time; the natural materials in the books breaking down, or molding from water exposure after two hundred years.

Directly in front of her was an oval reception desk. Even more directly in front of her was a woman sporting a short haircut and, strangely enough, dark red robes with metal accents on the collars and sleeves_. Weird._ She had a Chinese-style assault rifle slung over one shoulder, and her gaze snapped up to meet Jennifer's as she pushed the double doors in.

Her expression immediately fell into one of deep annoyance and her mouth thinned in irritation. She pushed herself up from the terminal she was hunched over and swung around the desk, steps purposeful. Jennifer would almost be intimidated if she wasn't absolutely certain that she could kill the woman with one well-placed pistol shot to the stomach. As it was, she merely lifted a brow in response to the display.

The red-robbed woman stopped a couple of paces away from Jennifer and held up a hand. Her voice barked out in the space between them. "Hold it! This area is under the authority of the Brotherhood of Steel." Her eyes narrowed fractionally when Jennifer merely gazed back at her steadily. "Leave immediately."

Jennifer chewed over how to approach this. She _really_ wasn't interested in a fight with the Brotherhood, but she needed that book catalog. Apparently her mouth hadn't caught up with her brain, because she heard herself start speaking. "Wow. I can't go anywhere without running into you people."

Jennifer sighed internally. The other woman was not impressed by her astute observation. "You are in downtown D.C. You'll likely be running into our Paladin squads all over the area. I would suggest being polite, local." She dropped her hand back to her side.

Jennifer grit her teeth in irritation. "I have, yes. Anyway, I was just here to look at the book catalogs."

The other woman eyed Jennifer's laser rifle and the attack dog at her heels. "You're awfully brave to be walking around here by yourself." She paused for a beat, and Jennifer wondered if she was going to turn that into a backhanded compliment somehow. "Or stupid." There it was. "If you're looking for the records, it would seem we have similar goals in mind." She paused again, longer this time. She seemed to be debating something, and Jennifer could see on her face when she eventually came to a decision.

"I am Senior Scribe Yearling, Order of the Word." Jennifer hadn't fully realized until this point how serious this Brotherhood was about the 'knightly order' aesthetic, but apparently they weren't kidding around. "And I have a proposal for you, if you are interested."

* * *

The Arlington Library was infested with raiders and the catalog terminal was no longer connected to the mainframe. _So what's the solution? Send in Jennifer. That's just peachy._ She could hear the echoes from the distant Paladin squad as they helped her clear the area. A hallway that split left and right circled around and reconnected in the back and led to the mainframe area; she had been sent left. Hopefully with both sides covered, none of the raiders would escape or try to flank either group. The plan made sound tactical sense to her.

She pressed her ear to the closed door in front of her. Hearing nothing, she tried the doorknob. _Dammit. Locked or jammed._ She turned sideways and planted her shoulder to the door, trying to slam it open. Once, twice.

The third time it flew open, and she stumbled inside at the unexpected success. With too much momentum, she tumbled to the ground, tripping over her own feet. She heard shuffling movement from the other side of the room, and righted herself just in time to get tackled by an unseen assailant. Her rifle flew from her grasp and she was thrown into a wooden chair, which shattered at the impact into a million small splinters. A sharp pain in her right hand informed her that she'd have to pick some out in a minute.

The person on top of her smelled rancid in the unwashed way that many raiders shared. His face was covered in dirt and smeared blood, and he had a wild look in his eyes. His right arm pinned her down as he raised his left hand which gripped a rusty knife. She frantically pulled her own hand free, and as she caught his wrist on the downward swing of the knife, she belatedly realized that this was going to hurt.

Pain exploded in her right hand as the wooden splinters were shoved down further into her palm, and she snarled at the raider grinning down at her. She had enough strength to hold his knife away from her, but she couldn't throw him off or even headbutt him. She wildly looked around for something to help her, wondering where the hell Dogmeat was.

As if she had summoned him, something forcefully collided with the man pinning her. He was thrown over the top of her head and his back hit the ground, which was good. Less good was that in the process of being flipped over, she lost her grip on his wrist and his knife fell, impaling her in the shoulder through the strap of her combat armor with such force that it lodged into the wood floor. Warm blood rushed out of it, staining her vault suit and the floor beneath, and she screamed.

Dogmeat snarled behind her and she heard the raider's death gurgle.

She frantically reached up and ripped the knife out of her shoulder and threw it across the room. A small, pained noise left her as more hot blood spilled out of the wound, faster now. Her heart beat loudly in her ears. She tried to lift her arm and almost screamed again at the effort. Her left hand scrambled at her waist for the pouch of stimpaks and she clumsily snapped it open after a few long moments.

She reached up and injected it into the junction of her neck and shoulder, the chest piece of her armor hanging loose with the strap cut. She stayed on the ground, hunched on her left side and breathing shallowly, until the disconcerting feeling of her skin and muscle stitching itself together stopped. She took a moment to pull the large wooden splinters out of her hand, flinching at the pain and watching the blood leak out. The stimpak would work its way through her system to heal the gash on her palm under her thumb eventually. Jennifer heaved herself to her feet and looked around.

Dogmeat was sitting near her, looking worried at the state of her. She gave him a clumsy pat on the head. The man who had tackled her was lying with his throat ripped out, in a similar state to another raider across the room, who Dogmeat must have been dealing with before helping her.

Jennifer shook her head angrily at herself for what should be a rookie mistake by now. She reached over to grab her rifle's strap and swung it over her left shoulder. She was having trouble lifting her right arm, and she desperately hoped that it wasn't a side effect of her field injection of a stimpak. Those are always dangerous, leaving scars where someone who was well rested and fed would come out unscathed, but nothing bad had happened yet. The muscle in her shoulder had probably been nearly severed, and the accelerated healing might have reconnected it incorrectly.

Jennifer shook her head at the thought and unbuckled her chest piece to let it fall to the floor. She would have to work without it for now and sneak her way through the remaining raiders. She rolled her good shoulder and unholstered Amata's pistol, then strode out of the room.

The journey to the mainframe area was pretty much clear after that, and after meeting back up with the Brotherhood soldiers, she set to work reconnecting the terminal link to the main server. A few minutes later and she was back in front of Scribe Yearling, who was eyeing her ripped and bloodied vault suit hesitantly.

Luckily for Jennifer's patience, the woman refrained from commenting on it and handed over the promised caps for reconnecting the terminal to the mainframe. She swiftly downloaded the book catalog and archives and holed up in a side room that didn't have Brotherhood soldiers or raiders in it to scrub down her vault suit and rest until she could leave in the morning for the Memorial. What could go wrong?

* * *

The first thing Jennifer noticed was that it was too dark to see. Where the _hell_ was she? The second thing was that she was cold, much colder than usual, because she was covered in a fine layer of sweat that chilled with the air around her. The third was that she was sore all over, from her hands clenched tight around her legs to her back that was hunched over, burying her face in her knees.

She slowly unclenched her hands, feeling the blood rush back, and stretched out her legs, making her body ache even more, briefly, as she straightened up. She still couldn't wrap her mind around what was happening fully. How did she get here? Where even was _here_? She looked around, trying to get some sort of clue, before she realized that she needed some sort of light source, as the darkness was encompassing and complete.

Her Pip-Boy gave a mild _beep_ and flooded the room around her with a sickly green light as she held down the middle button on its face. It looked like some sort of closet. There was a shelf across from her covered in an array of cleaning supplies and buckets. The room smelled faintly of dust, as though it wasn't used very often. She suddenly became aware of Dogmeat sitting next to her, bright, wary, and alert, watching the door intensely.

At her small movements, he turned towards her and nudged her with his nose, looking every bit as concerned as he always was when she got herself into trouble. "Hey, buddy." When he deemed her to have pet him an acceptable amount, he went back to playing the lookout, watching the door. _Well, okay then._

She began to stand, leaning heavily on the wall for support, her body achy and protesting moving after having been curled on the ground for who-knows how long. Even that simple movement drained her of energy. Jennifer looked around for a light switch, and after a solid minute of struggling in the low light, she found one and flicked it on. The bulb above her was nearly burned out, desperately in need of replacement, and gently buzzed as the room filled with a dull light. It was enough for her to see by, at any rate, and she turned off her Pip-Boy's light.

With the screen no longer lit, she could see that it was _very_ early in the morning according to the clock, which confused her already muddled brain. She had returned to the Memorial from the Arlington Library some time in the late morning, which meant it had been almost twenty-four hours, and she didn't remember a goddamn thing that happened in that span of time.

Jennifer's chest began to constrict, and it was getting harder to breathe against the rising tide of panic. She stumbled from her spot leaning against the wall to the door and threw it open. The bright light of the hallway stunned her momentarily, but the open air helped her breathe.

Dogmeat rushed past her legs, looking around them, before he turned back to her with his head cocked questioningly. Unfortunately for him, she didn't know their next step either, because they certainly weren't in the Memorial. She cautiously looked down both ends of the hallway, but other than being in some sort of curved building, there were no other identifying factors to take note of. The walls, ceiling, and tile floor were all a shade of white, and the ground was mostly swept and mopped, if a little old and worn. It was probably the cleanest building she'd been in so far.

After a moment of wavering indecision, she decided _fuck it_ and started going right, hugging the wall tightly with her right side and keeping a hand on it to steady herself. Dogmeat followed close on her heels.

She passed by a closed door with a sign on the outside that read 'The Den'. She frowned in consideration, the word ringing some bell in the back of her mind. She shook the unnerving feeling off and continued on. She slipped through a set of double doors labeled 'A Ring' and came face-to-face with a mountain of steel.

After a moment of alarm, she recognized the symbol painted on the shoulder of the power armor, and realized she was looking at a member of the Brotherhood of Steel. Was she in their base? She remembered talking to those two Brotherhood members at GNR and one of them had mentioned what their base was called, she was pretty sure, but she couldn't remember it for the life of her.

The Brotherhood member turned to look at her as the door opened, and after a brief moment of consideration, nodded at her politely. "You're the vault dweller?" At her confirming nod, they continued. "I was told to let you know that the Elder wanted to speak with you." She was promptly disregarded as the soldier went back to keeping guard, having communicated that request. Jenifer took the opportunity to let Dogmeat in behind her and shut the door.

"Thanks. I'll find him soon." She didn't get a response and didn't particularly want nor expect one anyway.

Studying her surroundings revealed that there was some sort of medical bailey to her left and another closed door ahead of her. She walked forward and peered around the corner, trying not to appear too suspicious now that there was another person around. Rows of closed doors met her gaze, except one labeled 'Mess Hall' which seemed to be open. She started heading that way, thankfully not having to pass another guard, but she took note of the one stationed further down the hall.

The mess was brightly lit and stocked with different kinds of pre-war food containers and drinks. Attached to the side walls were rows of booths, like the kind they had in the Vault. Along the back wall was a stove, sink, and fridge, with a set of worn cabinets above the counter. She hadn't noticed how dry her mouth and throat were until she looked at the clean water, but the realization didn't surprise her. She was dehydrated - she had sweat a lot in that closet. Her skin was still chilled with it.

She looked at everything laid out on the counter but couldn't bring herself to grab anything as a protesting wave of nausea washed over her. Instead, she made her way to the first booth of the room, next to the doorway, and slid into it so she was facing the room and could watch anyone that came in. Dogmeat laid himself under the table, out of sight.

Now for the difficult part: trying to figure out what the hell was going on. She took stock of what she knew as best she could through her tired and muddled brain. One, she didn't have her bag or weapons with her, except the knife in her boot. Two, she didn't seem to have any obvious new injuries, but she couldn't remember what happened after she left the library and returned to the Memorial. Three, they let her keep Dogmeat, and the guard didn't attack or detain her, so she wasn't being held hostage or prisoner, but she was alone.

She frowned at that realization. Where was her dad? A headache suddenly bloomed between her eyes and she pinched the bridge of her nose in frustration at the pain. Concentrating, she could faintly recall people in black armor and a man in a coat speaking with her dad. She was… behind glass? Her heart beat in time with the pulsing of her headache. They were talking and… Madison Li was beside her. Her dad and the man were arguing and there was a shock wave and he collapsed against the glass, coughing blood, smearing crimson…

Her eyes widened as she remembered precisely what happened at the Memorial in blistering clarity. The memories crashed against her and she wished desperately she could rewind time to twenty seconds ago when she didn't remember in painful, agonizing detail every moment of watching her dad die from advanced radiation poisoning.

Her chest filled with a coldness, reaching to all of her limbs and numbing her from the inside-out. She tried to steady her breathing, she couldn't _freak the fuck out_, but as she watched her dad die in front of her over and over she couldn't help but shake.

Jennifer breathed, and breathed, and breathed, and tried not to panic like some _wimp_ like Butch was always calling her. She could handle this, she had handled everything that had happened so far, she'd lost plenty since that moment Amata woke her in the Vault, what was losing one more person after everything so far?

She broke from her revere as footsteps approached the door and a person walked through wearing some sort of long-sleeve blue shirt and dark colored cargo pants. She detachedly watched the other woman approach the counter and rummage around, grabbing a Nuka Cola. She looked familiar, but Jennifer couldn't place why.

Until she turned around, that is, and Jennifer suddenly placed her face after seeing it clearly, and the name that went along with it. Sentinel Sarah Lyons, that woman she had met at GNR. To her credit, Sarah didn't jump at suddenly seeing Jennifer sitting - admittedly kinda creepily - alone in a booth at three o'clock in the morning.

After a long moment of silence, Sarah raised an eyebrow at her. "You just manage to get yourself into all sorts of trouble, don't you? What are the chances I'd find you after you'd gone MIA for the last few hours?"

She seemed to be expecting an answer, so Jennifer made her brain catch up with what was happening. "Maybe I was ready to be found." She felt like there was something more she should say, but she couldn't think of anything, so she fell silent.

Sarah watched her consideringly for a moment before grabbing another Nuka Cola from the counter behind her and then gesturing to the other side of the booth in a sort of _you mind?_ motion. Jennifer shrugged in response and gently pushed Dogmeat with her foot so he wouldn't get crushed by the other woman sitting. He huffed at her, betrayed, as he crawled out from under the booth and laid on his side, apparently at ease with the near-stranger approaching them.

Sarah slid into the booth and easily popped the caps off both cola bottles, leaving them in the middle of the table, and pushed the other across the way so it was sitting in front of the vault girl. Jennifer hummed in appreciation, but she was already sliding backwards into the reel playing behind her eyes, watching her dad's blood smear on the glass-

"Where did you go?" Jennifer jerked her head up at the other woman's voice and met her sharp blue eyes. She'd forgotten she was there. "Earlier. After we led your group to the med bay." Sarah's face was carefully clear of any emotion and she kept her eyes locked on the younger woman.

Jennifer hadn't gotten around to thinking about any of that yet, a blur of halls flashing through her mind, blinded by a haze of panic. "I just found an empty room and stayed there." She chewed on the inside of her cheek. "Guess I just wanted to be alone." She briefly thought about her meeting with the guard outside. "Someone told me that the Elder wanted to talk to me. Do you know what that was about?"

Sarah tapped the hand not holding the glass bottle against the table top. "My father wanted to establish a plan of action moving forward, as the Enclave have begun a full-scale occupation of the Memorial, and what your role would be in it." She tilted her head a bit, face unreadable, eyes flinty. "I'm curious about that too."

Jennifer frowned and dropped the other woman's gaze. It was hard to look at her when it felt like her gaze was pinning her to the booth seat. "I'm not sure. I mean, I'm still not a hundred percent clear what's even going on."

Sarah's hand stopped tapping abruptly. "What do you mean?"

Well, damnit. She hadn't meant to reveal her hand quite so thoroughly. "I mean- I just- I'm having a hard time remembering everything that happened." Fear and panic tried to crawl up her throat and she swallowed harshly. "It was all so fast after Dad-" She wearily brought a hand up to rub at the scar above her eyebrow. Her headache was building again and making it difficult to think.

Her arm was suddenly blazing hot, and she swiftly opened her eyes to see the other woman's hand laid gently on her wrist. Sarah spoke carefully, for all the intensity written across her face. "I think you went into shock after you arrived here."

She stilled in thought. _Oh_. Well, the symptoms seemed to match, at least. Shock can cause a brief lapse in memory. Warmth radiated through her, starting from her wrist and dislodging the cold from her chest, accompanied by the sweet sensation of relief at the explanation. At least she wasn't going insane.

"Yeah. That's… Yeah. I think you're right." She was having trouble expressing her gratitude just then.

Sarah smirked at her. "I know I'm right. I've seen it enough, and you look pretty out of it." Her face fell a little. "Actually, you look terrible."

Jennifer snorted. "Gee, thanks?" She couldn't get a read on the other woman. Was this supposed to be making her feel better? Because it actually kind of was, and she didn't know if she should be annoyed by that fact or grateful.

Sarah spoke seriously. "You should sleep more."

Jennifer scoffed. "Says you. What are you even doing up?"

Sarah shrugged lightly. "Looking for errant vault dwellers. The Brotherhood doesn't take kindly to them, you know. Almost as bad as muties." Well, that was a deflection, but Jennifer certainly wasn't going to point it out.

"Don't worry, I'll keep an eye out for any."

Sarah gestured at the girl's cola. "You should drink that. Before it gets cold." She brought her own room-temperature drink up to her lips, apparently pleased with herself and her joke by the way she was smiling slightly behind the rim of the glass bottle.

Jennifer rolled her eyes. "Oh, I didn't know you were a comedian." But she brought the drink up to her mouth anyway.

* * *

They stayed in the booth for a while, each quietly sipping at their colas. The silence probably should feel awkward, but it didn't. Jennifer didn't linger on that thought. Before too long, though, Sarah was dragging her up and out of the booth with some half explained comment about how Jennfier was, quote, _'disgusting'_, and that the other woman was surprised they hadn't found her earlier due to the stench alone.

Which was a fair assessment, really, as Jennifer had been crawling around in the sewer that connected the Memorial to the Citadel. That didn't mean she had to like it, though. Jennifer performed the appropriate amount of huffing and brooding and scowling to convey to the other woman that she didn't appreciate the fact that she was called disgusting and smelly, however true it was. Dogmeat just trotted along happily beside them like the traitor he was. He even stood on Sarah's other side, not in his usual spot beside her, because apparently she couldn't trust anybody in this wasteland.

Eventually, after traveling through many hallways and down a few sets of stairs that left Jennifer confused and slightly lost, the group stopped outside of a large locker room of some kind that she was promptly shoved into and told to put to use.

It was similar to the ones that were in the vault. The main room was filled with lockers that didn't seem to see much use. A doorway to the side led to another tiled room that had showerheads lining the walls with drains under them. The main difference was that in the vault, there were small tiled walls that separated the showers and provided some modicum of privacy. There were none here.

Jennifer mechanically stripped off her clothes and left them in a heap on one of the metal benches against the wall by the doorway. She wandered over to the nearest showerhead and, with a bit of fumbling she was glad no one was around to see, she turned on the shower and stood under the rush of clear, cold water.

A chill settled over her skin and helped clear the fog from her head. Her thoughts eventually led back to what happened at the Memorial and she felt hot tears well up in her eyes. They silently fell and mixed with the cold spray of water running down her face.

Jennifer inhaled a deep, shuddering breath and took stock. She left Arlington Library and arrived at the Memorial. After some fussing from her dad at the state of her shoulder, she finished cleaning her vault suit and repaired the shoulder strap of her combat armor. She helped him with some menial tasks. The Enclave arrived. Her dad was locked in the Rotunda with some man and they both got kille-

Sarah's voice cut through her thoughts, bright and sharp. "Hey, vaultie. I left your bag and a towel out here."

She gave an acknowledgement to the other woman and began to wash her body and hair more earnestly. Disgusting water swirled down the drain at her feet. Eventually, the water shut off automatically and Jennifer made a protesting noise in response.

She eventually turned and, briefly leaning out the doorway to make sure she was alone, walked over to her stuff and toweled herself dry. She dressed in her spare jeans and white shirt and gathered up her disgusting clothes and bag. She wandered out the locker room to see Sarah leaning against the wall by the doorway with Dogmeat at her feet.

They made their way to some laundry room where she deposited her awful-smelling clothes and towel that were to be washed by Brotherhood Initiates, apparently. Sarah led her back up the winding maze to the med bay that she had passed earlier, where the Memorial group had been brought when they'd initially arrived. There was a Mister Gutsy currently inactive in his docking station in the corner. She spotted Madison Li and some of the other scientists and mechanics that had been stationed up at the Memorial lying on various cots around the room. One was empty of anybody, and had her rifles and pistol piled on top, and her armor heaped on one end. _Glad to know where those are._ It must have also been where Sarah had found her bag.

Thinking of the woman, Jennifer turned in the doorway to look up at her, only to find herself already being studied. She opened her mouth to say any number of appropriate things - like _'thanks for dealing with me even though I'm an awful mess and probably would have stayed sitting in that booth for a few more hours'_ \- but the words got caught in her throat. She promptly shut her mouth, damning her own awkwardness and social inability.

Sarah took pity on her. "Try to stay here this time, if you don't mind." The amused curl to her mouth told Jennifer that the other woman was kidding, probably. Mostly.

Jennifer shrugged in return. "Yeah, I'm not going to make any promises. Goodnight." She turned to walk back into the med bay without waiting to see what the other woman would say to that.

She could hear Sarah attempting to bite back laughter behind her and she smiled to herself a little.

* * *

Jennifer spent most of the night alternating between fighting back waves of tears and crushing emptiness. She felt strangely hollowed out in her chest, like somebody had taken a spoon and carved out a part of her heart. The cot she was lying on was pushed against the wall and she took the time to study it.

The white plaster was cracked and peeling in places, giving it a rough, raised texture, and the wood underneath was dark. It smelled strange, like some of the other places that she'd been in. She wondered if it had something to do with whatever was in the paint that was aging.

Jennifer turned onto her other side. Her brain was skipping like a bad vinyl record. What was she supposed to do now? Her dad was . . . gone. She hurriedly dismissed that thought. She couldn't get back into the Vault. Painful, but one she had sat with for a while now. The Elder wanted to talk to her about the Enclave?

She flipped back onto her side so she faced the wall. Her right shoulder twinged in response. It still wasn't working fully. The Elder wanted to talk to her about the Enclave. The group that currently moved to occupy the Memorial. The one that killed her dad, and a few of the other scientists if her memory wasn't failing her.

Her eyes stung at the sheer rage that filled her at the thought of them. She clenched a fist and dully watched it shake at the force of her grip. Yes, she'd speak to the Elder. She wanted to know what he planned on doing, because she knew that the next thing for her was to find and kill every last Enclave member in the Capital Wasteland.

* * *

A/N: This chapter has been drafted and re-drafted and re-worked and re-written since I released Chapter 19 months ago, so I hope it doesn't disappoint.

Hope the scene change between the Arlington Library and the Citadel wasn't too jarring, but I really wanted to do something different for that whole part of the quest, and after doing some research on medical shock, it seemed like an interesting angle to go for. I liked this version better than the play-by-play alternate version.

Additionally: the Citadel is much bigger than is depicted in-game. Think of the layout of "The Hive" from the Resident Evil (2002) movie. Stimpak headcanons are explored a bit. I also looked at SO many diagrams of shoulder muscles for that fight.

Finally, if anyone is confused by Sarah's mildly babysitting behavior here, it is important to note Jennifer doesn't quite grasp the reputation she's garnered for herself as good, but slightly unhinged.

Thanks for reading, and remember to review! Anything is appreciated.


	21. Chapter 21

Jennifer didn't get much sleep that night. She spent too much time tossing and turning in her little cot. She listened intently to the number of sounds increasing in the hall as time went on and, presumably, more and more Brotherhood members woke to attend to their daily tasks - whatever those were. She was so focused on a peculiar clomping noise -_ power armor, maybe?_ \- that she jumped in surprise when she felt a sudden tapping on her leg. She trailed her eyes up to meet the owner of said hand.

The woman loomed over her in the way most of the Brotherhood members did with their ridiculous height. She sported military-cut grey hair, shorter on the sides and longer on the top. Her dark brown skin was lined with age, particularly around the mouth and on her brow. Her expression was serious, but not unkind. She was dressed in a strange jet black jumpsuit, accented by metal pieces and various zippers. One metal clasp stood out in particular, situated on the woman's collarbone.

Jennifer swung her legs over the side of the cot and stood, facing the other woman, an eyebrow raised in question. The older woman laid a hand on her chest. "Hail to you. I am Star Paladin Cross, keeper of the ARM, and Seneschal to Elder Lyons." Cross extended her hand out to gesture to Jennifer. "You are James's child, yes?"

That didn't really feel like a question, but at least it was polite. Jennifer nodded affirmatively, ignoring the flood of pain at the sound of her dad's name. "Right. Jennifer Williams. It's nice to meet you, Star Paladin."

Cross paused momentarily, a half-smile sweeping across her face briefly. "Polite, like he was." At Jennifer's confused look, she elaborated. "I am honored to say I was acquainted with your father, and I am sorry to hear of his passing."

"It's-" Her voice cracked under the strain of speaking about her dad's death. Jennifer cleared her throat gently. "Thank you." _There, nice and simple._

Cross nodded to acknowledge Jennifer's words. "However, I did not wake you to speak of such things so early in the morning. I came to advise you of a meeting Elder Lyons wished for you to attend, if you would allow me to escort you there?"

_Well, they don't waste any time here, do they?_ Jennifer felt humor flicker in her chest briefly and die. "Of course." She looked down at what she was wearing. "Actually, I had . . . other clothes . . ." She gestured vaguely to herself. "Is this, um, okay to wear?"

Cross briefly looked over her, and started to speak. "That should suffice for-" She paused and, after looking for a moment longer, changed her mind. "Perhaps you should change. Where are these other clothes?"

Jennifer briefly explained where her clothes had been taken in little detail. Cross left the med bay to fetch them, under the correct assumption that Jennifer would in no way be able to retrace her steps from the night before and it would be faster and less painful for both of them if she handled it. Cross returned in record time, clutching her boots and vault suit.

Seeing as everyone else in the med bay was still asleep, Jennifer decided to hastily change by her cot, not particularly caring about the indifferent presence of Cross standing by the closed door, who wasn't paying her any mind._ It's only my jeans, anyway._

Moments later, they were on their way. Dogmeat was left behind in the med bay to look after her stuff. Jennifer discreetly pulled the collar of her vault suit closer to her nose to bask in that 'freshly-laundered' smell.

Several turns and a pair of double doors later, and they arrived at a large meeting room. A circular table dominated the space, with chairs lined up along the edges, and cans of clean water laid out at each spot. A flag hung on the wall - blue, with the cog, sword, and wings of the Brotherhood stitched in white in the center. It made for a pretty picture.

They were the only two in the room. Cross apparently had a tendency to arrive early.

Cross gestured to a pair of chairs and the two sat. As her companion didn't seem inclined to conversation at the moment, Jennifer pulled up her Pip-Boy and slid the keyboard out. She had been working on a code off and on that would hopefully allow her to send messages to a terminal after she connected it to her Pip-Boy, but she was having difficulty with a particular part…

She frowned at the device on her arm and itched for a cigarette. She tapped a few lines out, studied them, then sighed in annoyance and erased them. She became absorbed in her task, blocking out her surroundings to narrow her focus onto this program.

A few minutes later, Jennifer was vaguely aware of voices floating around her. They didn't seem important, so she tuned them out. This left her wholly unprepared when somebody lightly kicked the leg of her chair, jerking her to attention.

She snapped out an annoyed "what?" as she looked up. Sarah stared back at her, entirely too amused considering the fairly aggressive tone of voice Jennifer had used.

Jennifer blinked up at her, shocked, and started backtracking for absolutely no reason. "I, uh, sorry, um, I meant-" She closed her mouth, deciding silence was significantly better than whatever the fuck _that _was.

Sarah crossed her arms, mild amusement still flitting across her face. "Well, good morning to you, too." She pointed a finger in Cross's direction. "I was talking to Star Paladin Cross about the meeting. I thought you might like to know more about what to expect."

Jennifer nodded gratefully. She had kind of been trying to avoid thinking about it so as not to shred her nerves. Sarah sat in the chair next to her, turning to face her more fully, one leg crossed over the other at the knee. Jennifer scooted a fraction of an inch closer, drawn to the other woman's magnetic orbit.

Sarah had already mentioned before that the meeting was about how the Brotherhood would engage the Enclave strategically - apparently Madison Li had already spoken to the Elder about the G.E.C.K her dad had been searching for, and that's what Jennifer would be focusing on finding, for when they eventually took back the Purifier.

Sarah explained Cross's role in more detail, with the woman herself chiming in when she deemed appropriate. Cross had come from the West Coast with the Elder and was his right hand man, so to speak. Star Paladin was a step lower than Sarah's own rank of Sentinel, but it had many of the same benefits, such as independence regarding orders. She would probably be assigned to the Purifier Project to assist in whatever way she deemed most helpful.

Head Scribe Rothchild would be in attendance, as the lead scientist of the Brotherhood, along with the three Proctors under his direct command. There would be some Paladins that were a lower ranking than Cross, but had some sort of field command and were therefore relevant. _Easy enough. _

People started filtering in, automatically taking seemingly arbitrary seats around the table. Sarah continued talking in a low tone of voice so as not to disturb the others. Soon enough, an older man walked into the room, face lined harshly with age and stress. He wore robes similarly designed to the Scribes' robes but were dark blue in color, matching the flag behind him. She could vaguely recall meeting him briefly yesterday after the Memorial group arrived at the Citadel.

Everyone stood from their seats in the presence of Elder Lyons, and Jennifer scrambled to follow suit, a few moments behind everyone. Sarah tossed her a slightly sheepish glance from the corner of her eye for _failing spectacularly_ to mention that little detail.

Elder Lyons walked gracefully to his seat on the other side of the table; an older, balding Scribe dressed in red followed at his side; the man must be Rothchild. Elder Lyons waved a hand and everyone resumed sitting, and the meeting started.

The information Sarah gave her put the following discussions into context. Cross was assigned to the Purifier Project to pursue however she saw fit. The Elder discussed the technological differences between the armor and weapons that the Enclave and Brotherhood employed, respectively, with the Scribes, and assigned them to the task of finding ways to compensate for the disadvantage they faced. Apparently the Brotherhood was in bad shape after the Outcasts left and took a lot of their equipment to fulfill whatever end they were working towards. She filed that away for future consideration. The Paladins were to send out their reconnaissance teams to gather more information on the Enclave's manpower and tactics, so they could form a strategy to fight back.

The main problem was that they had no idea where their main base of operations was, and even less leads for finding it. People offered up ideas, they were considered, and eventually thrown out. On and on they went in that tedious, never-ending loop.

Sarah offered to send the Pride in to track them down. That was shot down. The Paladin recon teams offered to try and capture Enclave members to interrogate for information. That was turned away with surprising vehemence, although Jennifer didn't see the flaws in it. The Scribes were currently debating scientific strategies for locating their base.

Jennifer, personally, hadn't contributed until this point. She'd been stuck on the Eyebots the Enclave used, the memory triggered by something a Scribe had mentioned. She hadn't realized, hadn't paid enough attention, to notice their significance, but now she couldn't stop focusing on it. They were _everywhere_. Downtown, near Megaton, bopping about on the various roads she'd traveled since leaving the Vault. But why? Not just propaganda, surely. She didn't recall meeting anyone on the surface that actually believed what they were saying - except that weird old guy in Megaton. _He must be having the time of his life right now._

She remembered helping Three Dog replace his satellite antenna, and the weak signal he had before that. Compared to the Enclave, who never had a weak signal, no matter where in the wasteland the Eyebots hovered.

Jennifer straightened suddenly in her chair, struck by a lightning bolt of realization. Cross glanced at her from her seat. The Eyebots didn't have a bad signal because they _were_ the signal amplifier. Whatever base the Enclave were hiding in had a main antenna they used to send out radio broadcasts, and the Eyebots wandered out as signal boosters, giving area-wide coverage.

If they were relaying back information to their base, that information could be pulled straight from whatever hard drive storage the little flying computer used and ripped from its coding. Jennifer mentally patted herself on the back, but deflated when she realized she had to actually articulate that discovery out loud, to a room full of people she didn't know. Well, mostly.

Jennifer turned to Cross at her side, who still hadn't glanced away from her. Her voice stuttered from excitement when she tried to speak. "It's- the Eyebots- they're radio receivers!" Cross stared blankly back at her brilliance.

Admittedly, she was being a little incoherent. She tried again. "And amplifiers! That's why the signal is never bad." That was barely any better. God, why can't she just use words to convey simple ideas like a normal person?

Sarah leaned closer to her from her other side. "You've got something?" Jennifer nodded and Sarah raised an eyebrow at her in a silent request for an explanation. Jennifer realigned her thoughts and more coherently explained to the two women what her idea was.

Cross nodded slowly, but she didn't look entirely convinced by it. "It can't be that easy, can it?" Jennifer hesitated, biting back her instinctual response of _yes it can_ because that wasn't quite accurate, and there was no need to get defensive.

She relented after a moment. "Capturing it would be the hard part." And the information stored in the Eyebot was probably encoded. If these so-called Scribes were any good, though, that shouldn't pose too much of a problem.

Cross nodded to her and raised her voice over the cacophony of the three Proctors almost-yelling at each other to get Rothchild's attention. He turned their way, raising an eyebrow in question.

Jennifer shifted in her seat nervously, but re-explained how the Eyebots could potentially be used to find the coordinates of the base. Rothchild hummed thoughtfully. "And how do you suggest we go about capturing one? We couldn't use EMPs. It would corrupt the data storage. . ." He trailed off dismissively, already turning back to his Proctors.

Jennifer jumped back in at that. "I was thinking maybe sonic emitters. They should be able to disrupt the electric currents without damaging the memory."

Rothchild paused and turned back to her with the full weight of his attention. It made her slightly uncomfortable. "De-electrifying the piezoelectric materials?" She could see him mentally turning it over in his head. "That could work." Rothchild turned back to Elder Lyons and started discussing the idea with him.

The ball of tension stuck in her chest slowly started to unravel. Well, that wasn't so bad. Then Elder Lyons turned the heavy weight of his gaze onto her, and the tension rewound itself again. She mentally shook herself. Sarah said he wanted to talk about her role moving forward, or however she had phrased it, so this wasn't unexpected.

He silently studied her for a moment. Jennifer stared back at him. His voice sounded like the crackling paper in the burned pre-war books that laid in the downtown ruins. "So, it would seem we come to the last part of our agenda for this meeting today." He looked at Rothchild, who pulled out a map and unrolled it so it sat on the table for her to see. Paper weights were laid on the corners to keep it flat. "According to reports from our reconnaissance teams, the locations of three prime locations for the G.E.C.K should be in Vaults 106, 92, and 87." Two markers were laid on the map; one shockling close to her Vault, and the other near the edge of the map. "Unfortunately, we have not acquired the exact coordinates of Vault 87." Ah, that explained why there were only two markers.

Elder Lyons turned his gaze from her to the map of the wasteland. "That should not be a problem, however, as our reports indicate that Vaults 106 and 92 are more likely to be in possession of a G.E.C.K. If they are not, then we shall reassess our strategy and focus on learning the location of Vault 87." His cool blue eyes met her, an exact match to his daughter's own color. "If you have no objections to this plan, then our meeting is concluded."

Everyone's eyes turned to her. She looked at the map for another long moment. The strategy was sound enough, and she probably was the most experienced person with Vaults at the meeting. Jennifer did wish that the plan involved more Enclave killing than it currently did, but if the wasteland was going to be as occupied as Elder Lyons indicated it was, then she should have plenty of that on her hands.

She nodded her head in assent, and Elder Lyons dismissed everyone with a wave of his hand.

Sarah turned to her and pointed to her father with a thumb over her shoulder. "I have some things I need to speak with the Elder about. Don't cause too much trouble, vaultie." Jennifer watched her walk around the meeting table for a long moment before turning to Cross next to her.

"Well, that was fun." She wouldn't be convincing anyone with that tone of voice, but that was fine. "What should we do now?"

Cross tapped the tabletop with a long finger in thought. "I already discussed authorizing you for power armor training and trading in the Citadel with the Elder right before I went to find you, so we should discuss the specifics of those before moving forward."

Power armor training? Right, she didn't use that stuff, there's no reason they would already know that she could use it from the Anchorage simulation. But she could definitely use some trading - she needed to buy fusion cells, Stimpaks, maybe some more of the components for her homemade grenades, and have somebody look at the weird noise her laser rifle was making after she slammed it into the armor of an Enclave soldier while escaping the Memorial. Probably not her brightest idea, but he was dead, so it worked well enough.

As Jennifer explained to the other woman that she already knew how to use power armor, Cross's face continued to become more and more neutrally passive. "Ah, yes, I recall hearing on the radio that you cleared out an Outcast base somewhere near Bailey's Crossroads."

Jennifer sputtered in response to her veiled accusation. "On the _radio_? Three Dog said that? They tried to kill me after making a deal with me! And he wasn't even there, what would he know about it?" Damn, Three Dog really just didn't know when to quit. And where did he even get his information from? Does he have spies everywhere? Is _Moira _spying for him?!

She knew Moira wasn't spreading gossip about her to Three Dog, but somebody definitely was. She shook her head in despair at the thought.

* * *

Dogmeat was given the chance to run around outside and stretch his legs before heading back underground with her. Jennifer passed through the Bailey and took in all the details around her.

The area was large, made out of cracked concrete, and filled with people moving to and fro with a sort of manic energy. Shooting ranges made out of scrap metal and tires lined the area where she could see Initiates - dressed in orange suits similar to Cross's - practiced their aim against large targets. In a corner, there were two women grappling each other in a ring of bodies. The spectators let out a cheer when one of the combatants fell to the ground, nose and lip bleeding from a well-placed head butt. Some were running laps around the edge of the area, others were doing push-ups or pull-ups. The air was filled with the lingering stench of sweat and body odor, generated by all the activity, and Jennifer crinkled her nose in protest. All of this organized chaos was led by a red haired man in power armor, shouting above the cacophony in a voice that rang with authority.

Everything was still a little hazy, but she didn't remember seeing anyone out here when the Memorial group had escaped. Then again, they had arrived at a strange time of day. That probably had something to do with it.

Interestingly enough, she could make a guess at the fact that these Initiates were actually wastelanders before they joined the Brotherhood. Surely they were well fed now, but it was easy to tell that once upon a time, most of the people training here had suffered from malnutrition and radiation poisoning growing up that had stunted their growth to some extent. They were leaner than most Brotherhood Knights and Paladins that she had seen in the Citadel, and a bit shorter than them too. Still taller than her, though, whose physicality was different from either groups'.

She'd noticed in her travels that the Vault environment she grew up in led to people that were shorter and more compact from the strict food rationing they experienced growing up. Combining that with the nutritionally deficient pre-war packaged foods that comprised their diets and the minimally working hydroponics garden, it's certainly no surprise that Vault 101 turned out vacuum-sealed residents.

Jennifer weaved between bodies in the direction of the large gate. Dogmeat stuck to her side, ears pressed flat against his head. Poor boy didn't like loud noises, and he needed a break from being trapped inside and underground.

Speaking with the guard for a moment, they raised a hand towards someone stationed at the top of the wall and the gate was lifted with a mighty shift of dirt and the low groan of rusted metal. She'd only get ten minutes, but that was fine when the two of them really just needed to stretch their legs.

Stepping out, Dogmeat raced past her legs to frolic in the grey dirt and rocks and probably roll around in something unmentionable, as he was wont to do. Jennifer nodded to Bael, the looming guard stationed outside the entrance, and wandered down to stand on one of the rocks overlooking the banks of the Potomac.

Fishing a cigarette out of her pocket, she turned to look out towards the Memorial as she lit the end. Narrowing her eyes, Jennifer wished she had brought her sniper rifle to take a closer look at whatever the Enclave was doing. She could make out movement and watched as a vertibird took off in the distance, but she couldn't see anything specific.

Her chest tightened at the thought of the Enclave and smoked billowed out of her mouth from her deep sigh. Jennifer's thoughts wandered to her dad's loud disapproval at her newly-formed smoking habit, but she quickly shook her head at that memory.

She finished smoking her cigarette, pointedly not thinking about anything at all. Shoving the butt of it into her pocket, Jennifer sharply whistled for Dogmeat who was, at that moment, joyously rolling around on his back. As she turned to walk back into the Citadel, the glinting flash of light on metal caught her eye. She focused her gaze on an Eyebot hovering on the other side of the river. Narrowing her eyes, she studied it for a long moment before turning back towards the gate. The metal barrier shut behind her with a thunderous _clang._

* * *

The rest of that day was spent getting her gear in order and trading with the quartermaster, Knight Captain Durga, who was prickly and no-nonsense in a refreshing way. They didn't waste time making small talk and instead got right to business exchanging caps. Of which, she was getting a little low. Selling raider gear brought in a surprising amount of money, but she had been so busy hanging around the Memorial that she hadn't had the opportunity to sell anything in a while.

Jennifer had made her way back to the med bay to get as much sleep as she could, but after feeling like she had just closed her eyes, she was already restless and awake again. At least the clock on her Pip-Boy could prove she had gotten some shut eye, regardless of what her body was telling her.

She rolled onto her other side, but her shoulder would ache if she tried to lay on her right for too long. She eventually sighed in defeat and sluggishly got up. She had to step over Dogmeat, who was laying on his side on the ground next to her cot, to reach her boots and tie them on. He slid one eye open to watch what she was doing for a moment, before pointedly closing it again and choosing sleep over whatever antics she decided to get up to at ridiculous o'clock in the morning._ Damn traitor._

The door creaked as she shut it behind her. Driven by a mysterious urge, she retraced her steps towards the mess hall, which was surprisingly unchallenging. The door was open again, apparently available for the night shift to come and raid at all hours.

Jennifer hovered in the doorway for a moment before wandering to the food stacked on the counters and gently nabbing a slightly crumpled box of Fancy Lad Snack Cakes. She hurried back over to the same booth from last night, already plucking at the packaging to rip it open.

She munched on the pre-war snack, and the food or the sugar or both woke her up a little from her groggy, half-alive state. She had just shoved the last piece of the first snack cake in her mouth as she watched someone else enter the mess and make their way to the counter.

Sarah Lyons turned around with a Nuka Cola held aloft in her right hand, exactly the same as yesterday except for her clothes. Identical, right down to the slightly raised brow in mild surprise at seeing her sitting there. Jennifer hurriedly swallowed her mouthful of snack cake, and when had she stopped chewing? Jennifer watched something shift on Sarah's face, and with significantly less hesitation, Sarah turned back and grabbed another Nuka Cola, before launching it through the air in an arc towards Jennifer with an amused, "think fast!"

An embarrassingly squeaky noise of protest slipped out of her mouth as she raised a hand and caught the room temperature glass bottle half an inch from her face. Thank God for her good hand-eye coordination. She stared incredulously at Sarah for a long moment. "What if that had hit my face?"

The other woman shrugged in a far too relaxed manner. "But it didn't, because you have good reflexes." She meandered towards the booth and slid into the other side - the material of her grey t-shirt stretched against her well-muscled biceps. Jennifer softly cleared her throat and focused on opening her Nuka Cola.

After a long moment of struggling, she twisted the top off with a triumphant "hmph!" under her breath. Looking up, she caught Sarah unsubtly watching her open her cola with slight amusement.

The other woman twisted her own bottle cap between her fingers, seemingly contemplating something. "So it looks like you'll be going vault hunting, huh? Is that going to be weird, considering-" Sarah gestured to Jennifer's vault suit, referring to the fact that she was from a vault.

Jennifer hummed in contemplation. "I don't know. Maybe. But I guess I am the best person for the job, right? Unless the Brotherhood raids vaults more often than anyone is telling me."

Sarah smiled mirthlessly. "We don't. Our chapter hasn't been outside D.C in twenty years, and the vaults we know of aren't in the ruins."

Jennifer swirled the drink in her bottle. "So, does that mean you don't have any tips for vault hunting?"

Sarah sat back in the booth seat, surprisingly serious. It made Jennifer sit up straighter in attention. "Honestly, I don't know if they're dangerous, but I know they're difficult to get into, and there usually aren't people inside them." She paused and chewed over what she would say next. "I don't think you're being sent on a suicide mission, but be careful." She looked openly concerned.

The sentiment had heat crawling up her neck in embarrassment and mixed with the heaviness sitting in her chest. "Don't tell me you're worried, Sentinel." Jennifer tried for casually teasing, but it came out a bit too wry and fell more on the side of bitter.

Damn her, Sarah noticed it, too, and blinked in surprise. Her face slid back into smooth confidence, but it was distant and cool. "Not at all, vault girl." She gave one last flick of her bottle cap and left it spinning on the booth table as she stood up and walked out.

The cap rolled to a stop. Jennifer left after staring at it for a long, long time and tried to untangle the mess in her head. Dragging her feet through the halls of the Citadel, she realized she did feel a little bitter at the Brotherhood. She was being sent out into the wasteland with no backup and next to no information about the situation she was going into, and she didn't have expectations for them, exactly, but it did still sting with disappointment. She thought- well, she's not exactly sure what she thought, but even if people do call her the _Lone Wanderer_ it would be nice to have people to rely on, sometimes. People outside of Moira and Gob, specifically.

She pushed the door open that led to the Bailey. It was still early morning, and the stars shone down brightly from the dark curtain of the sky. Jennifer still wasn't sure why that slight bitterness was being directed at Sarah, though, when all the other woman had done was go out of her way to help her since she arrived. She tried to take a sip of her cola, but when she brought the bottle to her mouth, she realized it was empty.

Hopping and scrambling, she climbed up onto the flattest piece of rubble she could find. Jennifer stared out to the horizon until the sun rose in glorious color, and kept staring until her eyes burned.

She managed to avoid the burst of Initiates flooding from the doors to start their morning training routines. Jennifer slunk through the halls back to the med bay in search of her gear. Approaching the door, it took her a moment to recognize the form of Star Paladin Cross in full power armor, minus the helmet, looming outside the door. She sighed, dreading the slowly building headache forming behind her eyes.

Cross raised a hand at Jennifer's approach, face neutral. "Hail to you. I have a matter I would discuss with you, if I may." Jennifer nodded at her to continue. "Many years ago, I helped escort your father across the wastes." She paused for a moment, deep in thought. "It was the best I could do at the time to help him in his efforts. Now, I offer to accompany you to help complete his journey."

Jennifer took a moment to process this offer, mind sluggish from lack of sleep. While one soldier wasn't quite the firepower she had been hoping for, it would be good to have a trained soldier accompany her, and Cross seemed trustworthy enough.

Realizing her mind was already made up, she stuck a hand out for Cross to shake. "I would be honored to have you with me, Star Paladin." Her mouth twisted into a wry grin. "Now let's go kick some Enclave ass."

* * *

A/N: We have officially started Act II, everybody. Three cheers all around!

I spent so much time researching sonic emitters and how they would affect computers and radio signals. I long for death. Additionally, readers will notice instead of going straight to Vault 87, there are some detours ahead. I believe this about as divergent as the main quest plot points get until Broken Steel, where I shake things up a bit. And yes, I did change the color of the Brotherhood flag. You're reading my fic so you follow my rules, and the rules say orange flags aren't allowed in this house.

Remember to leave reviews, and check out my tumblr knoxxie-writes for some extra content!


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